Time… merely a reflection in motion, a shadow we’re never quite able to grasp. We ask can you see it, or hear it or feel it? It’s there and its gone as you say that it’s there. The joke is on we, who try with our frightened minds and (Heaven Forbid!) our aging bodies, to catch what can never be caught.

 

Laugh clown laugh, before you cry – You have no time to cry…….

 

And who’ll make the great proclamation, printed on fine gray paper, That time is not real in this world of star-studded values, Who can buy it, or give it, or steal it? Oh, but we can, say the Great White Healers, with sterilized hands we’ll open your flesh – and hand you time, just as soon as your Brothers’ runs out. We can’t say how much, and the cost – who can price it? If we just had more time to dwell on the price—–

 

Laugh clown laugh, before you cry – You have no time to cry……..

 

If it were I – who had to proclaim, on that fancy gray paper, to Stop, if you can – for an instant. We have been given a precious glimpse, as it flew by, of something they’ve labeled ‘Eternity’. Its’ ours to keep, just open the doors of your memory, but be careful you pack-rats – don’t crowd your room from floor to ceiling with useless memories, save for the new ones, if time will allow you, and exercise caution to open that door, you may not be able to close it. Like an overstuffed suitcase, with rags of remembrance, stuck in the hinges of time.

 

So take at least with gratitude, the glimpse bestowed on we lucky ones, and pity the greedy who think we’ve been cheated – they’ll run, and they’ll run – til they run out of time.

 

Laugh clown, laugh – see Sandi run…….

~ Sandi Burton

11/1969