(image courtesy of h.koppdelaney)
the time has come
from
every universe
all eternity
every potential
all possibility
the time is now
just
this once
once again
we converge together
at this humility
the time has come
time for birth
time for death
time to plant
time to harvest
time to kill
time to heal
time to weep
time to laugh
time to break
time to build
time to love
time to hate
time for war
time for peace
the counterpoint
of billions of
independent
sentient
universes
has coincided
in this single present
6 comments:
my thoughts on this:
I had the idea of using Dr. Suess's Marvin K. Mooney book as the springboard for this poem. I wanted to go along with the sing-songy nature of that, so I kept a bit of a rhyme and meter going for this one. I wanted to use this child's rhyme to explore the profound nature of time and the present, and how we independently converge upon the same moment. The idea is that everyone in the challenge is looking at the same picture for inspiration this week, so in a way, the same way that a Bach fugue has independent melodies which converge in various ways in harmony, we create poetry based on a single image. I expanded this out to include all of humanity in the coda. I'm afraid that the duplicity in the word 'present' at the end is appropriate, but perhaps unfortunately trite; I'm still working on an ending idea which is better than this.
Jim, I thought I recognized "the time has come, the time is now, I don't care how you go, just get..." etc. from Marvin K. Mooney. I always had a great time reading that to my daughters ~30 years ago.
Your final stanza clinches it for me. Very nice!
I love the way this poem to seems to drift through time throughout the beginning and then, within the last stanza, sort of climaxes and comes to a very final, very definite end. Very effective.
3/5/2010 I had some thoughts and discussions with my wife about this and edited some things. I wanted to make the reference to the found portions from Dr Suess a little more subtle, and I lifted things from Eccl 3 being about time and the obvious references in the image to death and rest and the cycles of things. So, here you go.
Again, I really appreciate the comments.
This definitely has a sing-song quality to it. I enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing.
Pamela
Ah, yes, the time has come. This is a lovely rendition of rhyme and inter/dependence.
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