A Matter Of Time Poem by Les Derbyshire

Choirokoitia, Cyprus
And a visit to a Neolithic Settlement.
My mind ready to be educated;
Stones and bones
From a time beyond my imagining;
Nine thousand years of waiting
For my eyes to open to them,
My body to share the air they breathed.
And look! A hoopoe!
Flash of chestnut and blue.
Out with the camera, quick!
Click!
And a beautiful photo of a tree
Where a hoopoe once had been.

Nine thousand long years
Or 1/125 of a second.
It makes no difference;
I missed them both.