I am letting time slip
uncharted, minnows
too small
for this net to catch,
but still nibbling
my fingertips and gone
disinterested in bait
and the missed minutes
fizzing and foaming up
like bubbles in champagne
add up to one more day poured out
an empty bottle
tracked in a red X on the calendar,
2359 to 0000
and the seven-day forecast
gives weather for Saturday
regardless of the Mayans
whose predictions
are much older
and weather will happen
independent of our speculation
whether rain or fire falls
if I buy balloons
and release them singly,
carefully
until each passes my limited vision
to balance in clouds
it is my way of worship
my gesture, meaning only this:
We have less time than we knew
and that time buoyant, and cloven,
lucent, and missile,
and wild.
***italics are from Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm.
Susan Daniels Poetry 
I hit the like – because I did… I comment only to reiterate the like button being pushed…not much more to say really 🙂
🙂 thanks, appreciate that! You have me laughing like a lunatic over here. Oh well. The kids already know I’m nuts, so no harm done!
I’m glad 🙂
Great poem. Nice quote from Annie Dillard (I enjoy her books). I love the balloons idea. If you release a balloon when the world ends will it cease to exist? Will it be the last testimony of our existence? Fascinating imagery. Inspires imagination.
Terry–I adore Annie Dillard. I find myself gasping at her grasp of ideas, and how she expresses them. Glad you liked this, and all I could think of was time rising like bubbles in champagne, and popping, and balloons perhaps doing the same thing. Hmmm. Releasing a balloon the moment the world ends is a magical idea, and one of the few times one will not be scolded by someone who loves the planet, telling you a sea turtle will try to eat it. Sigh. I would rather be nagged into not releasing the balloon into an intact world.
😉
it is time to question
all the answers that just
drop into palms
like peaches, ripe
heavy, round
sweetly complacent
I am letting time slip
uncharted, minnows
too small
for this net to catch,
but still nibbling
my fingertips and gone
Interesting, probably can’t get away with mixing metaphors like this, but I like it.
More strong work Susan, and I love the Dillard excerpt too 🙂
Mike–I like it–it is a “Susan fusion.” Thanks for liking this one. Interesting you blended the two opening stanzas…For that poetry group I belong to, we were doing erasures a few weeks ago, and one of the poets strung all of her last lines of her poems written in the last month or so into one poem–and it worked. You kind of did the opposite here, and I really, really like it. Consider poo flung in admiration 😉
I’m happy as a pig in shit
or a Panda under shit
I really don’t know which is happier!
Whohoo!
Sweetly done, Susan. Like the Mayan/weather bit. Those crazy Mayans…
Oh, thank you, Trent. I have quite the poem planned for 12/22 😉
I wish I could be around to read it, but I suppose that I will be blasting off on some Arkansas-sized boulder into deep space. What a shame, what a shame, what a shame.
Oh, no–no, plan on being here to read it. Because if you are indeed blasting off into space, I shall be on a New-York sized boulder (hoping the state stays intact for that, at least) rocketing off with you who knows where.
That does conjure certain images, doesn’t it. I can see you surfing the rock as you pass Pluto, but your beach towel is slightly burned and you forgot your sunscreen. I’m sure there’s a bit of farce in there somewhere.
Speaking of coincidences, my middle kid’s birthday is the 21st. She is sorta hoping for a relatively non-exploding day filled with gifts and cake (purple cake of course – always purple cake).
oooo–purple cake? Sounds like my daughter, when she was small. Everything had to be purple.
Yup, pretty much. She’s turning 3 on Friday.
enjoyed this one er well muchly 🙂
Thanks, Bruce!
You are having a bit of fun with this. Fear not, more predictions lie ahead.
LOL, my best one is the one for tomorrow 😉