What is time?
Is it the moon’s hallucinogenic
time
of the unicorn?
Or, is it the sun’s sobering
time of radiant clarity
that shuns bleary eyes away
from yesterday’s optimisms?
Is it the relative notions of
time and space?
Where minutes become hours and
towers of hours
Transcending into days spanning
more and more years
That then morph into scattered
forgotten thoughts
Or misplaced shattered dreams
At life’s end,
As age takes its full measure
and payment
Of a full life-
Lived with curious fantasy
Or mired on the stark streets
of rue?
Either way, the only point of
reference that matters
is the one that is written on the
ignoble grave marker:
Stating a beginning date and the
inevitable end date;
Where only a name remains to
be remembered,
That is, if there is anyone
left to light those candles of memory …
perhaps, with an appellation;
maybe, a final self-attribution:
saying, “I am not here any
longer. I am out there in the woods - -
yonder”
Matters not, for the trees
will whisper the way there
As the leaves explain how
breezes can become winds
And how winds can turn into
raging storms of destruction;
Leaving seeds strewn across
the landscape
Scattered amongst the standings
of the old forest
Where seeds can aspire to be
more than ripen ovules
While the Mother Tree evokes a
sense of community
And a place of comity among
the old trees;
That no longer identify with the
young diminutive seeds.
However, the songs of the
progeny will play on to celebrate
that the grains will grow into
the reasons for Mother’s gains
while wondering,
“Why vapid germination without
savory temptation?”
When do the degrees of time
gather enough space?
Thus, becoming a relative
position in the universe;
Thereby also establishing the
disposition
that the sun’s juxtaposition
Is where it sets - a past;
Or lies - a future;
And, at this moment, clarity
and consciousness
Being the only truth that is –
is NOW.
Standing neither as an egoic
day
Nor a tortured night
But rather more –
A transcendent self.
