FLEXIBLE TIME Poem by Harkaitz Cano

Time goes more slowly in a foreign city;
therefore escapes, therefore inadequate airline companies, therefore jetlag
- or that sudden captivating unpleasant odor -
therefore the tendency to read maps upside down.

Time goes more slowly in strange houses;
therefore hotels, therefore visits, a fascination with waiting rooms;
therefore the insatiable desire
to tell ambulances from fire trucks in the swift wail of a siren.

Time goes more slowly in unknown bodies;
therefore the search for lovers that spring from new delays;
therefore wounds, because time goes more slowly over wounds.

Because pain is the false promise of a false eternity.

All explorations,
undertaken with military caps or wrapped in bearskin,
on horseback, in the mountains, in the open air or by sea,
heroic or daily strolls
- Scott, Shackleton, Captain Duvoisin -
are they but pathetic attempts to stop the clock,
to bet against time?

Because time always goes slower as snow is removed
or as the machete clears brambles in the jungle.

But on familiar roads the hours fly by.

This is the price you pay: time goes slowest when you are lost.

Slower on a cliff than on the flatlands.
Slower in the forest than on a safe path.

The rambler always looks to the forest, to the mist there.
He would like to lose time in the forest
but not lose himself in time or
not be lost by time, perhaps.

It has been said:
no one has yet conquered flexible time.
Mere links in the chain of time are we,
bearing children in the forest and telling
children's stories
lost there.

Because time always passes more slowly
on unfamiliar paths.