An Asking In Time

How would you catch time?

Like curling fingers,

Around a sunbeam?

Where can you see time?

In the sand,

In the stars,

In the faded photograph,

In the wrinkle of your skin?

Did you wonder at time?

When the flowers bloomed,

When your baby slept,

In a casket,

(a cradle no more)

When love morphed to hurt

-          - and back?

Were you scared,

To let him go?

When you sensed him,

Robbing you of,

Her laugh,

His smile,

Your beauty,

Their applause,

(come back)

Did you plead him to hurry?

When the broken needed mending,

When the heat threatened to burn,

(oh it hurts)

When the noises got too loud

-          Or the silence?

(no, no, no)

What did you do,

When you found your life,

Wrapped in two lines,

Of words (mere words),

On black marble,

Like the pearls on,

Your beloved’s neck,

-          The memoir of an oyster?

(I sneered at him then)

But you thanked him once,

When you saw the cobwebs,

You didn’t unravel the threads,

Flinched away from them,

(memories were leaking through)

Ah – memories, memories,

Footprints left behind,

By things no more,

On the beaches strewn with,

Broken toys,

Broken mirrors,

Broken dreams,

Choices and hope and will,

Stealing them away,

Continually,

Mercilessly,

(mercifully)