Time is an army you must defeat,
Covering the hills, murderous and vast,
It is marching in millions to meet
You in this gap between the present and the past.
How little your resources! On the train,
Close your eyes, think of yesterday in your brain,
Find a poem to recite,
Think of a beautiful scene at night.
How long is the train ride? A half an hour?
Time owns all time, and time is the flower.
Time created every thing you know,
Including you, and Time being time, now it’s time to go.
But don’t panic yet. There are days, parts of days
Where maybe you can think of something.
She might be getting bored. Think. You cannot kiss her on the train.
Close your eyes and think of your little brain.
If you think of nothing, you know how long the ride is.
Make her happy on the ride. Time will not wait for this.
Time will invade, will invade
The woods, the wilderness, the stone wall, the brook,
Time will engage your limited brain. Quotations from a book
Will not save you. There is nothing holding time back,
And every moment registers the long, mundane, attack.
What are you doing now? Are you smiling, babbling?
Staring, trying to look manly? The trick
Is to make her fall in love with you, make her sick
In love with you, just by being yourself (whatever that means),
But time will fill the air
With empty troops, empty, empty,
Until her brain no longer finds you there.
Time has made itself very small. A small cough.
Here’s the station. Get off.