Time has a life of its own June 14, 2012
There is probably more going on in this nugget of a poem than
I can see, perhaps the marking of some anniversary to which I am not privy or
if connected me only marginally.
The poem alludes something in its title that had become a kind
of mantra during our early interactions – especially when I suggested things
could not possibly work out between us.
On its surface, the poem seems to explain as to why she
needs to live her life, moment to moment.
In some ways, this is a sister poem to the one she posted
three days ago with the combined sense of inability to control something and
with a certain fatalistic sense of not to try.
The poem personifies time and the image she uses strongly
resembles those old-fashioned cartoons where the shadow detaches itself from
its host to take on a life of its own. In this case, the day rushes ahead of
its master no matter what the master does to hold it back.
Meditating or else, the day just won’t come back to whom it belongs,
and suddenly, it’s a year, not just a day that has passed (maybe lost forever).
The speaker in the poem sounds resigned to this after having
wasted time and energy in a fruitless attempt to keep control of time.
But there is no tone of panic, merely resigned acceptance of
the inevitable.
The poem seems to say that time has a will of its own, and
the only way to deal with it is to live in the moment, to not make big plans
for later that may still be unfulfilled a year later.
You can waste your life trying to pin it down, but as
well-worn words of wisdom clearly indicate no matter how desperately you try go
to control the little devil, it will do what it wants anyway.
Time as a will of its own.
And the poem seems to be an acceptance of that face, and a
in apparent attempt to reminder it is up to her to live her life moment to
moment, not project ahead to what she hopes will happen.
She can only control what happens in that particular moment
and perhaps not even that.
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