Richard Greene

Hurry Up.  It’s Time

The year is 1999

and I feel a certain urgency,

for whatever doesn’t get done this year

will remain undone

until the next millennium.

Happy New Year

Suppose there were no years.

Would anything be different?

We think important things have ended and begun

when it’s only dates on a calendar,

perhaps some resolutions

(largely to be unfulfilled)

or the earth beginning,

for over its four billionth time,

a new circle around the sun.

The world doesn’t stop at midnight

like a train changing engineers.

There’s no bump in the road of time.

The scene hasn’t changed.

The characters are the same.

The play goes on much as before.

Dramatic climax is no more likely

than on any other day.

There’s not even an intermission.

A foot raised at the end of one year

comes down the next

with no pause in between.

Isn’t it just old wine

in a new bottle?

Whose Millennium?

It’s not just that 2000 is a year too soon,

or that Jesus was probably born in 4BC

(before his time)

or that other calendars,

the Jewish and Muslim, for example,

are entirely different.

What about those millions,

if not billions, of planets

in the universe

that don’t revolve in 24 hours

or rotate around their primary

every 365 days,

the ones where the year is 4195

or 10023

Earth time?

No, the planets don’t go round

at a special pace

for humankind.

The Time Machine

Strapped to our chronometers

we make much of time.

Once “early morning,” “late afternoon” or the like

was all the precision we required.

Now we measure punctiliously by the minute

but freed from the waste of imprecision,

instead of feeling affluent

we treat each minute

as if it were something scarce

worrying over its loss.

We line our minutes up

and put them through their paces

like soldiers on a drill field,

with equal lack of purpose,

filling our days with motion.

In fear of losing time,

we prefer to use it pointlessly.

And, while we worship it,

it casually sweeps us aside.

Chronometry

Like so many humans

I wear a watch on my wrist

and look at it many times a day.

In this we are unique.

No other earthly creatures measure time.

For them it just is.

Oh, there’s their time to mate

and time to migrate,

but no set time to eat or sleep.

They do these things when they’re hungry or drowsy

or when the sky grows dark or light.

We do them by the clock.

They seek sustenance until they’re full or weary.

We work our allotted hours no matter what.

No other animal makes appointments.

No, only we humans digitize,

dice time into small pieces

and so regulate our lives.

We have mastered time

and are its slaves.

Time Machines

the hourglass,

its thread of sand

extruding the perfect cone

voluptuous as a dune

in the far Sahara

the sundial

harnessed to our fierce star

with soft shadows,

rotating solemnly

on the planetary axis 

the clock,

its winking wheels

winding down the segments

of our days

steadfast, quiet,

sweet instruments of time

measuring out our moments

with lyrical precision

The End of the Race

For much of our lives we wish we could hurry time,

become one of the older kids,

then an adult,

graduate,

end the week’s work sooner,

gallop to an anticipated holiday or anniversary,

shorten the wait for a child to be born,

and we’re pleased when time seems to run flat out.

Then one day we notice

the end of the course is in sight

and we’d like to slow down.

But time keeps cantering

at its habitual pace

immune to rein and spur alike

and what seemed so slow before

now seems all too fast.

On the Downhill Side

April’s over

having, it seems, only just begun.

Once past the apex

we speed ever faster.

Ascending was slower

The landscape labored by.

Each time you rounded a curve

there was another just ahead

and you never saw the summit

much less the decline on the other side.

Then one day you notice you’re on the downgrade.

The landscape unreels

at an accelerating pace.

You glimpse lowlands in the distance

from time to time

but the road

absorbed in its curves

never reveals its destination.

Down you go

wind pressed to your face,

applying the brakes

which no longer work the way they used to

and the last thing on your mind

is to shout whoopee.