Standing in a Moment

Have you ever wanted to freeze time?
I don't, of course, mean that you don't age,
or that you stay in one moment in particular,
but that everything, all at once, just *stops*.
Oh, how I would love that--
I would make the world stop whilst it rains,
and I would stay there;
I would stand in a moment,
with the immobile raindrops hovering in place,
hanging in the air like glistening sky-ornaments,
and I would run through them,
laughing all the way.
I would run, and run, and run, and laugh.
Everything, everything, unmoving, unchanging.
Perfect, absolute, beautiful *permanence*.
Nothing would change, nothing would fade;
perfect opacity of all temporal avenues.
I'm afraid, good people of the world,
that the Boulevard of Time has been closed for road work.
When shall it open, you ask?
I know not, my friend.
Actually--
I do know:
When the world learns to leave *one* thing that stays the same,
where there is something, *anything* to be clung to,
a bulwark of my existence.
I tire, good friend, of eternal flux.
Couldn't I, just once, step into the same river a second time?
Ah, what sublime thoughts are these!
Could I stand in the midst of eternity and watch time and space blaze by--
but one thing, if only one thing, never changes?
O, come to me, thou unchanging love of mine,
thou and I shall stand here as the world flies away beneath our feet;
we shall stay here in the cosmos with the planets spinning madly around us.
Let the cities crumble, and the mountains fall;
may the islands sink, and the stars die,
but thou shalt stay the same forever;
thou shalt never go away;
thou shalt never abandon;
thou shalt never change, never age, never die;
thou shalt never tire;
thou shalt never leave;
never forsake,
and never give up.
Endure with me, lover mine,
for without thee I shall surely perish in the lonesome darkness,
swept away by the cold, tireless currents of Time.

-D.B.