And it occurred to me
That these are the days
Each 24 hours long
(As decided by some surmising doing being some thousand years ago)
These are the days
Through which we rush headlong
Like children hounded by bells
School is out
It is in
Lessons in session
Heads down we forge ahead
Fall behind
This school of life
Constantly honing us at the crucible of strife and dissatisfaction
We pay our taxes
And are swallowed by the worry beast
It spits us out
There goes the bell again
We appear
Dishevelled, our shoes on the wrong feet
Trying
Striving
Pushing for peak performance
Standing on stages
We have reached through tripping up stairs, hearts knocking in chests that are crushed too often in defeat
Drinking coffee in copious throw away cups
Consuming everything around us in an attempt to satisfy that empty feeling that whispers
We are still not enough
Still not enough
Yet this is all there is of us
These 24 hours that we stuff with stuff and then throw away in our morning paper cups
Piles of rubbish
Like burrows dug
Rising out there – at the town dump – where we cannot see our shameful leavings of broken pieces
Constantly discarding
Shedding and losing sense of any direction in which we could be heading
North?
Ahh yes but it depends which way your standing
Direction is so
Personal
Direction
Is so pertinent
Yet systems and facilities
Governments and legislation
Pushing compass needles into clocks
Chaining and subduing every wild thought by virtue of
Reports and graphs that weigh mightily on the mind and must be returned by June O’clock deadlines
So we wait in queues
On phonelines to someone who may answer or not
Barely human – they sit tied to another compass clock
Perhaps in one of those other directionless countries
And we spend our time
With gold dollar coins that have lost any value and certainly all shine
doodling in nearby notebooks that fill up pages with ever broadening and bewildering circles
In stuttering attempts to find meaning in who we are
What we came here for…
As if any of it matters
We are life itself
In all it’s glory
But we have snapped our huge potential into so many little pieces
Enormous trees
Reduced to matchsticks
Strike and burn
Toss and yearn
Look though here, you runaway child
Stop
Yes I too can hear the bell
Block your ears!
Don’t heed it, it rings from hell
It will ring
And ring
And somewhere work will begin again
Stop
Look
Oh runaway child
24 hours is not what it seems
You are bleeding from those scuffed up knees
And that suitcase of things
That you’re dragging
Is sitting on your heartfelt dreams
Crushing your chest
These hours
They are all that we have
Our lives pinned like flies
To calenders
Stored in electrical devices
That ping and prompt
And someone forgot
To tell us
Not
To throw them away
Unpin the day
The hour
Release them from time
They are all we get
Precious time indeed
Flies
These hours and days and weeks and years and moments
So fleeting
They reduce me to tears
Sliding down the cheek to set in stone
The writing it spoke to me as it sealed all those tombs
Rest In Peace
And after so much running
I guess they did
Whom?
Well it really isn’t relevant – they’ve left this sliding room
Tipped out the trapdoor at the bottom of the chute
Yet we forget
And forget
Despite bodies of evidence
That these hours we wake into
Are all we get
So when you ask “where did it all go?”
That time, it just went
It just went
And there goes that damn bell again
But before you hark and bow to the sound
Look behind it – to the moon still going down
In the vast ink black sky full of dying stars
They are already dead too you know
Out there
They died perhaps a thousand years prior
Yet we see their ghost lights if we look up
Fleeting little ghost lights
That’s all we are
Good luck
And may those running feet for just one moment today
Walk on earth that is real
And not in your head
Lest we forget
Rest In Peace
It’s the things etched in stone
That make you think and forget
But what would I know
I’ve only been here for a blink
And all those humans
Thinking
Running
Sifting
Time
Ever shifting
Swallowing stars
They’re gone
We all go
There are plenty of ways to beat time and muffle the bell – so many and I’m still finding them – hiking, photography, meditation, yoga, strolling with dogs (have you noticed how immersed the wise hound is in their surroundings?)
You won’t get an award for any of this and some will scoff and say you are wasting time …
Those people need a big hug – truly they’re just a wreck beneath that shiny bonnet of a brand new car to nowhere they are driving …
Enjoy the day
The hours and minutes
The ups and downs and everything in it
Truly – this is our life bad if we start dividing up piles in to the bits we like and the bits we don’t
Well,
More bean counting and hair splitting and wasting of precious commodities
A fragile piece of string – uncertain of its own length and left hanging around like the balloons already deflating that marked a child’s party
Right here perhaps – that is the only place it can ever be
But despite all the reminders I still forget – so thought I would write it down
Thanks for reading
