Considering Time

Where will we ever find time?

The answer to that
depends on the date of your death.
Consider it might be tomorrow
and make up your mind to live.

But, you’ve misunderstood my question.
I will rephrase it. Listen.
Where will we find time?

Let’s look in the hedgerows first
to see which plant are budding,
are they limp or dry?
Have all their leaves been lost?
Has a bird built a nest or are all the fledglings fledged?
Did they all fly away to the south?

A year is the same as a decade
or a summer can last a year
but only when you’re a child.
Time is a relative concept
linked to innocence.
It moves faster as you age.
To witness time watch an apple
moving from ripe to rot.

I don’t own a clock.
I don’t expect precision.
If you want to arrange a meeting,
I’ll meet you when the sun dips down
behind the ridge of your roof,
or later if you like
when Mercury hangs above us
a step to the west of Jupiter,
almost parallel to the the moon
(that is to say, on April the 12th at roughly half past nine).
I will wait for you there but if that’s too soon,
any chance meeting is fine.
These moments hang
on the infinite line of time.

Do you think it ‘s all on a line?
I don’t.
Everything turns around and everything’s relative.

The rotation of the stars at night
is faster than we perceive.
I’ve seen them move, from dusk to dawn,
by sitting as still as a rock.

© A.Chakir 2023