Tempus Fugit
There is little denying the truth of this short phrase. I've been overwhelmingly aware of time's progression recently; but I've also tried to acknowledge that time really has nothing else to do besides fly by. After all, it is only abiding by it's true nature.
I came across this phrase today while reading through some things and immediately was reminded of a favorite poem that a friend of mine, Matthew Guncheon, wrote in college. He is now one of the many friends who has gone MIA due to the steady passage of time. But I always like to hold out hope that time carries us full circle and friends only disappear from our lives for a moment. (Can you sense that I am stuck on a theme in my recent thoughts?)
Anyway, here is Matt's poem, "Tempus Fugit."
TEMPUS FUGIT
“We are creation's / property, its particles, its clay / as we fall into this life / agree or disagree.”
-Jane Kenyon, “Winter Lambs”reading jane kenyon again from a floor-level shelf
at borders on north Michigan,
ignorance of all these pursuing aches fades
her words strike into me again,
the power of austerity, of simple words
chosen by this haunted-sensitive woman
whose gift it was to see ordinary as wholly new,
who chose to inscribe on her canvas
what we take as everpresent, what random scenery
to walk by tomorrow, seen yet unlived,
fabric that wraps our lives neither worn nor felt.
We walk where she did, on things she considered
ritual; our everyday ordinary like taking the dogs out,
lost in grocery lists, lettuce, celery, spices,
how to balance a checkbook with eighty dollars left.
She listened, one hand loosely on the reins of language,
where we walk to a destination,
not hearing the whispered conduits of fluid power,
our bodies whole, hers trembling with leaden sickness,
feeling power hidden in darkened chinks of
her log walls, as she wraps herself in a wool throw,
waiting for the wild music of wind rattling
through blackened eaves, and
snow falling amidst bare Vermont apple orchards,
they symphony of simple composition.Soon we will all become absent-minded
in the way of walking---learning only to listen
leaving our composition of lists to
other, more hurried selves in favor
of selves formed out of the clary of stark, simple power---
like reading jane kenyon to one another
shaping this habit until first stirrings of a peaceful age;
or until at last in our walking, we hear whispers
from the Long Night, saying softly amor tempus fugit,
even those joined at lip, eye, head and always heart.
You will step slowly into this---
the appreciation of a fused love behind a landscape
filled with modal snowflakes setting-to-partners
in joyous minuets immemorial under a darkening sky.