As we look back,

Seems our lives were squandered,

Except a few fine dots

Spread through memory,

Those rare moments

We were as we should be.

We think what could have been

Had we been our better selves more often,

Understood the value of time;

Time, that passes first

Not fast enough to get past our lack.

Time, we think, moves too slowly

Then later, we think, too fast, too fast

And try to slow it by observation:

     The smell of summer mornings,

     The smell of the Memorial Rose,

     The smell of Thyme, and Rosemary, and Pine,

     The smell of sex,

     The smell of our babies,

     And our children’s babies,

     And theirs.

And sounds, sounds, sounds

We begin to name them

Saying, that was the Great Horned Owl,

Becoming more and more like Adam,

More and more creators and sustainers,

More appreciative

Of this beautiful, dank earth

Even as our time on it

Comes close to its end:

Its suffering; its need; its joy,

And the never-ending-fear

That keeps our lives confined

To a few fine dots

And infinite regret.

A wise woman once asked me,

(I say wise

because she had proven

herself so in other things),

Aren’t all things we choose

The same, after all, 

Though they seem different

At the time?

It hurt to imagine the possibility–

Eleven years later,

I still can’t answer the question.