Time Flies Asymmetrically Poem by C Richard Miles

Time Flies Asymmetrically



Time flies on asymmetric wings
Perhaps in some reverse proportion
To our age;
This counter-correlation is mathematical:
At five, a year is but
A fifth of the child’s whole lifetime;
At fifty, it’s a fiftieth,
A tenth of the length of a childhood year.
When we were young,
It seemed we had to wait eternities
Till our next birthday;
But a year in old age passes
As swift as a month did once
And the time that there is left until the end
Is eaten up more rapidly
By the hungry years.
Time flies so asymmetrically
And has no conscience
In the way it treats us
For when we need a few more minutes
When we’re running late
It zooms at supersonic speeds
And even speedier
Toward those unrealistic deadlines.
Yet when we’re waiting
For that bus that never comes
Or the arrival of the lover
Who has been away
Time flags and flaps
As slowly as an albatross
That does not need to haste across the ocean
But then, perhaps, it’s us
Who try to confine time
Into square boxes
When we must let it free
To bend mere space and matter
To its incontestable
And sheer insistent will.

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