Time

I.
Time
is the young child
who gets up and pouts
for more sleep,
needs help getting dressed,
and then sits,
waiting impatiently for breakfast.
It needs to be entertained,
sometimes restrained,
and far too often,
occupied with activities, conversations,
games and TV.
It is the whiny voice in the backseat
that asks every five minutes,
Are we there yet?
The one who sometimes spits,
I’m bored,
and the one whose hand
needs to be pulled along on a hot day,
all the time complaining,
I’m tired.

II.
Time
used to be a commodity,
like money,
to be spent wisely or borrowed or saved.
It could be wasted,
especially on the young,
while in old age
it was something we ran out of.
Time was an object
to be lost or found or made.
It could fly like a bird
when you were having fun,
or could crawl like a turtle
when you weren’t.
It was even something to be killed,
while waiting for something else to happen.
Of course, we’ve all learned
it goes on forever,
unlike us,
who are here for the blink of an eye.

III.
Time
is now where we sit,
where we live our lives,
where we spend our days.
It is the air we breathe,
the music we hear,
the warm waters that surround us,
the slow-motion moments of our day
that stand still,
yet seamlessly stretch into the others.
It is the space in which we notice
the shape of a snowflake,
the plip plop of rain drops against the window,
or the sun’s warmth on our skin.
It is the space that allows thoughts
to bubble and percolate,
to rise and to expand,
and then float away,
like a feather on the breeze.

IV.
Time
is the divisions we make
in God’s creation,
from sunrise to sunrise,
from new moon to new moon,
from season to season to season to season.
The space between,
where human hands touch the divine canvas,
painting the stories of our lives,
the lineage of our ancestors,
and the history of our peoples.
Time is where we sketch
the human story,
where we chart our conflicts, our calamities,
our failures,
our work with and against ourselves,
moments we lift up
and moments we fall.
Time is that space where we endeavour,
we forge on,
we struggle through despair
to hope,
against which we measure our accomplishments
and in which we celebrate our successes.
And time is where we attempt to elevate
and even transform ourselves,
as we honour the divine.

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