Time

These days go slower and slower,
even though time never stops,
seasons change from one to another,
and then back again in a cycle,
that rounds itself out,
back to where it all began. 

All these travels,
to and fro,
moments wasted, 
scenes unnoticed,
as tides crash and take away more and more of what once was,
leaving behind what will be, 
even what it is,
even if it is something we can use,
anything to dull the relentless and barren passage of time.

I remember the clock on the wall,
keeping track of time,
I never seemed to notice it in the summer,
all those endless days,
it was not until the approach of autumn,
that I again began to notice the moving hands,
all around,
again and again, 
days growing shorter and shorter,
everything ending up frozen and dark,
then,
those nights by the fireplace imagining when the ice would melt off the pond,
and instead of walking across,
we would swim,
so long ago now,
forever in my mind, 
retold again and again,
once in a while,
told so well,
we would imagine we could do it again,
even now.

Today,
I don't know what these people look at,
only their phones,
and boxed up memories stored by pushing buttons,
never the anticipationn of conversation,
no real connection of memories,
only techno memory, sometimes erased,
as if it never happened for real.

We grow old,
disconnected,
from what has been,
from what will be.

We grew up,
they do not grow at all,
stunted little trees,
shrinking forest,
one they don't see,
always looking down.

Sometimes I can still hear his voice,
at the supper table and when I am walking on sunny days, 
in the still moments of memories,
in the sights and smells of the air all around me,
in seasons,
in the folded edges of old books,
waiting to be read on windy autumn nights.

T.S. Deary
4/23/25