I move quietly, furtively building on
the past as the future beckons.
Thirty-five, but I’ve long crossed a billion
if I measure it out in seconds.
Every second zooms by like a billiard
ball, zigzagging across the universe.
What just yesterday felt familiar
is at best, now distant, at worst,
inhospitable and unwelcoming, -
gazing back at me, licking its chops.
That same gaze, on the day of my reckoning,
will project from the witness box.
To my students, I’m now a dinosaur, -
in my mind, I am still in my prime.
Time is merciless, perhaps, - a primer for
what awaits us outside of time.
In my world, everything is kinetic -
and I’m rushing, sweating profusely,
seizing moments to fight this pandemic,
in attempts to savor the music,
and it’s not that the curtains are closing
but the stands are in such an upheaval
and the noise is so loud and imposing,
that it drowns out the bell on the steeple,
so the little bell tolling inside me
has now gone out of sync. Sasha, listen,
do not take any moment too lightly,
in a sweep of an eyelid – you missed it.
The full moon tonight will be a crescent
by tomorrow. The march is incessant.
I implore you to always be present
in the present and only the present.