Chronos Does Not Wait

Barefoot at the edge of the shoreline,

my footprints trail like old letters in fading ink,

washed away by the tide that came, 

before I could look back to retrace what had been written down.

The red sun sets, and the pendulum swings,

its arc indifferent to the tremor in my hands.

Dear Chronos– he who paints wrinkles into faces,

hands calloused from turning seasons,

care little to ask if I am ready for the next hour.

I reach out, yet my fingers close on nothing,

Chronos does not turn his head,

eyes fixed on the horizons I cannot name,

brushing past the echo of my unfinished sentences. 

So I run– not to catch him, for none ever have,

but to keep from drowning in the shadow he casts,

And when my legs give way, he will drag me still,

through the ache of sullen cries, collapsed,

through breaths that cease to call his name. 

Until my voice is a sound,

only the wind will be left to remember.

May my laughter fall where it falls, and rest wherever that may be,

for no longer will I seek the place where it will land.

As the shorelines learn to love the waves that undo them,

unguarded before their approach,

with the same bow in goodbye as it did in hello,

for being touched is to be remade,

and to be remade is to live.