I love time, and I time love, when it loves and sings.
But time cannot last,
Even as time falls into its own past.
Can you tell time from its things?
My love is not time,
My love will not be governed by time,
Though sometimes it dulls my rhyme.
Can you tell time from its things?
Emily Dickinson flew in my heather.
She will be my child, forever.
There’s no reason love has to end.
Death, and the tales of its stings,
Brings monopoly to time, but I
Have memories which still cry.
Our love is great, though it’s late.
Time isn’t the same as its things.
Love sailed, and sailed for me,
And her sailors drowned in the endless sea,
And died, every one, for liberty,
And their guns will shoot and their bells will ring
Until time seems a shining thing—
Yet this tale, we know is a lie,
And will not live at all in your eye
Or in my poetry.
Did you know, even as winter brings
Cold, time is not the same as its things?
You knew this, you knew this,
Even though at times, you tired of my kiss.
Every time we finish a task,
There are more things to do.
I had to kiss you more
When I started kissing you.
But my kisses, to you, had to expire;
Your kisses were born from a strange, white fire
That burned, flame for mirrored flame,
As your suffering suffered in time—
You could not tell time from its things.
Bad and good have beautiful faces and wings;
Many are confused, and some cannot tell
Sweet heaven from gruesome hell,
Nor time from its things.