What is time?
02 January 2013
GANJIKI D WAYNE | Supported by the Bea Amaya Writing Fellowship
What is time?
Mere measure of the length of each our stays
In our brackets in eternity
The length of each our songs
playing at different tempos
To different melodies
With different lyrics
The clock has fooled us
Time doesn't restart, won't refresh
It doesn't do laps, but marathons and sprints
These few minutes of my song,
In which I pen these words,
I'll never recover...ever
My song has no pause, no fast forward
Worse still, no rewind
It started, and soon it will end
Alas I shall find, there's no replay
I find us celebrating a mere progress of our song
If time was not made easier to tell
By clocks and calendars
Would we notice its progress?
Would we give reflection
And make resolutions?
What is time?
But mere reminder of our mortality
The tester of our values
Revealer of vulnerabilities
Screamer of our delays
Permitter of our growth and decay
The salt of our longings and nostalgias
We wade through our song
Oblivious to time's ultimate closure
What is time?
A seeker of the end
Its own end
Our song's end...
1 January 2013
Thanks Michael...
Posted by: Ganjiki D Wayne | 07 January 2013 at 08:49 AM
Ganjiki, your poem reminds me of a story I read about the creation of the fictional world called Middle Earth.
In his book The Silmarillion, which provides a fictional historic background to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien describes the creation of Middle Earth as being the outcome of a great orchestra of 'angels' playing music endlessly for their god (given the title Illuvator, which I think means 'Lord or source or creator of light' or something like that; I read the book so long ago but have never been able to find another copy).
At the final stages of their symphony Illuvator revealed to them what they had created through their music/song.
Melkor, another version of the devil, had also played in this orchestra. But Melkor's music had eventually become discordant, because he was prideful of his own skill and had wanted the others to follow his lead, whereas Illuvator had loved the 'wondrous diversity' provided by all the angels playing in their own way.
There's a lot more to the tale, but to me this has always been such a beautiful fantasy of how creation - despite being a scientist - I like it.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 04 January 2013 at 07:31 PM