Home Poetry Of time, of age and other fleeting things

Of time, of age and other fleeting things

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Of time, of age and other fleeting things

Do you never tire
of the slow motion of a constant stroke or of the tick-tock
of Olympian detachment?

On one day, many many decades from today I figure that I shall be
in the company of the young
telling the tales of a distant time and place –

a tale as distant as today, of a time this skin stood firm
in the prime of youth defying sag, spot, stress and wrinkle

how these greyed up locks of hair were once brown-baked-golden by the morning sun and this skin glowed brighter than a twinkle
my little audience on that day shall laugh and laugh

a full throated laugh
I figure I would laugh too
On that day, I shall laugh a laugh to unveil gaping holes and gaps of loss

of teeth that were once numbered but are now gone like a gun once used in a battle that is now won

rusty from disuse Today,

I laugh a laugh of youth in its prime and the golden locks of hair remain but this day at the stroke of midnight shall be gone, to be seen no more

like ashes and dust in each tick tock
Perchance I am mistaken I think I heard you say,

“we have time”
I find myself genuinely taken aback by the effrontery of such falsehood
as the grand parade of flamboyant presumptuousness

herald the ignorant
for we do not have her in the palm of our very hands save as art or a picture or a diploma
or a baby

she is as slippery as the catfish wriggling away from each loose catch to be seen no more
like the wind she cannot be grasped

our entire lives are spent in the womb of the wind eventually, birthed into death
and into eternity

she has us,

in day and at night
in youth and in age defined time flies
and she will never, land.

Next articleIrredeemably incompatible
Yewande Akinse (Adebowale) is a Nigerian Lawyer, gifted storyteller, Poet and Author of two collections of poetry titled ‘A Tale of being, of green and of ing..’ (2019) and Voices: A collection of poems that tell stories’ (2016). With over 110 published poems to her credit and counting, Yewande is one poet who doggedly seeks to change the narrative one poem at a time. She won the World Bank YouthActonEDU spoken word prize and Project Knucklehead Prize for Creative Rebellion.

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