When I wake to my alarm
I wake alone, by myself,
and roll my head into my arm
and nudge the day onto the shelf.
—
Weeks pass slowly with no one near,
sometimes not at all.
Hopes fade dim, none appear
with morning’s blushes on the wall.
—
My sleep is barren, my bed’s a grave.
No seed to sprout, no leaves to rise.
It’s only with the warm sun’s rays
that I bud timidly against the skies.
—
Twenty-some years have past and gone.
The headmaster, professor, and I too,
we taught what time alone could not:
that I must do what I must do.
—
So up I stand and face the day
and the motions of my duties make.
Like this, eons have passed away.
Like this, I have sold my take.
—
“Sold to whom?” a wise man asked,
“And where do you invest your gains?
When was to you assigned the task
of bearing your employer’s pains?”
—
“The time you’ve bartered at a loss
you sold not to a corporate being.
Time is a wily, winged fox.
He fawned, he fleeced, and now he’s fleeing.”
—
“It is to death you owe your debts,
time’s partner, they two share the deed,
and sure as the sun does daily set,
they’ll see from bonds of life you freed.”
—
“So do your best. Take what you can.
Filch from those beasts every minute.
Share all you get with your fellow man.
Make the most of life and all that’s in it.”
—
Upon concluding our conversation
I think I finally understood.
I should live richly beyond my ration,
should steal to give, as Robin Hood.
—
And so my days are used no longer
wistfully gliding on the back of time.
I have a plan, my will is stronger.
Death will have to wait in line.
—
Man does not sprout just to wither.
Woman ought not burn to fade.
The Good Lord did not send us hither
Only to return some day.
—
At your last breath, you’ll take none with you,
so what time you steal, generously bestow.
Run fast, run light, race straight with the few.
Hence you go where death cannot follow.