Poem: Time-Straddlers

 TIME-STRADDLERS

 

We are straddlers riding

on the back of time

clinging precariously to its sides

between the now and future

unassured of any final outcome-

 

lost in moments of loving and hating

laughing and weeping

hoping and despairing

dreaming and waking-

winning and losing

 

what’s that we can count as our own

at the end when all that we would but inherit

is old age and its decaying hours?

the youthful field would have lost its glory

and nothing is left of all the summer-flowers–

 

my pen would have been dry

my words, feeble and faint

no valiant song would spring forth

from my mouth, nothing radiant

would come my way but the day’s long sigh

 

in the horizon mist hangs heavily 

dust seems to cover my weary eyes

my voice has lost all its vibrancy

nights come too soon and darker are their shades

the world is no longer mine and my lonely tears I hide.

 

Peter Lim MS, 11 September 2017