Time

“Time”

I cannot pretend to understand,
How I am younger than yesterday.
That this time of mine backward and forward flows
And what words tomorrow I never could say,
Putting my lips to a dead, quivering hand
In an hour that no-one knows.

I think I’m in love with that hollow laughter—
The way the moments claim I am insane.
Showing me today, tomorrow, and forever after
That this moment will not pass me again.
Yet I live here now, in an hour gone by—
Every day I waken, and every day I die.
I fear the chime may be the last thing I hear
I fear my time to dissolve is drawing near.

How does time escape where the light cannot glow?
What is in an empty room where no one can go?
I have collapsed upon the threshold
Where there is such age to behold
On a horizon the light cannot flee—
What strange sights shall I see?

I am breaking—my time split in twain—
The hour has come to haunt my soul again.
Do you know I repent, and that I deplore
For more than what tears have fallen before?
Is my name writ in the sorrow of an ancient tongue?
What lullaby, what lament to a soul that died so young?

In passing, I broke your wings, but you still fly.
But no more. No more may we soar the same sky,
I am bound to the earth below
Where all my life lies in shadow.

I thought I had healed my wounds of yesterday
But time cannot take the pain away,
And as the seasons break and unfold
Our tale remains forever untold
Your innocence, and the demon I became:
Two souls, our wings lost in flame.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle