On Time

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time2

Who invented time?

I mean, really…
before there were calendars and watches
and birthdays and scheduling apps and
• b
• u
• l
• l
• e
• t

journals,

who decided we need to slice and dice our days and
months and years into the confines of linear numbers?

The planets and suns and moons
run circles around one another on a fairly regular basis.
They do not, however, march on like time.

Circles, cycles, ellipses, eclipses…
It is humans, not nature, who love to be linear.
We wait in lines to catch the bus, because buses must run on time.
We meet deadlines to stay timely,
read headlines to keep up with the times,
string power lines to serve the demands of modern times,
post bylines, because it’s about time we got credit for our work.

There’s no time like the present.
Time is on our side.
Time stands still for no one.

What would happen if we all became timeless?
I guess only time would tell.

dVerse Poetics: Time and What If? 

54 thoughts on “On Time”

  4. What is timeless and timely is our poetry–that stretches back to the oral renditions of history, illustrated by cave art. Like the White Rabbit, too many of ujs fear being ate for a very important date.

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  5. I like your wondering verse and the what if of time and how we think of it. I suppose humans like to impose order, though it’s only in the modern world that time became the way we tend to think of it now. There were other cultures that didn’t view it as so linear. And of course, the trains and factories needed schedules.

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    • I spent a summer in Costa Rica in the ’80s and it seemed like, in the outlying areas, people would just show up at bus stops and wait, knowing that eventually a bus would be by to pick them up. But yes, that wouldn’t work well in cities.

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  10. I like that thought, “What if we all became timeless” I think when I retired, i became timeless, (and dimeless too), lol. Honestly, I live in a retired community and i”ve never seen so many elderly Nascar drivers in my life. I know they don’t have anywhere else to go. What’s the rush?

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  14. Good questions, Maggie! Who was that human who first though of it? In these days of Internet, mobile phones and other gadgets, how many people still wear watches or use clocks? I’d prefer to be like the planets, suns and moons, to ‘run circles around one another on a fairly regular basis’. I thought that’s what it would be like when I retired but I’m still marching to time!

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  18. Smiling I am. Ah tis true….we are such linear beings. That’s what I used to love about camping vacations in our earlier years of marriage. Just lying back on the ground and staring at the clouds…..just waking up when we heard the birds chirping….just sitting savoring hot coffee in a battered tin mug with no where “listed” to go and no “to dos” to do!
    May we all take a break from time at some point in 2019! (Hah! And there it is….mention of a year which is a recognition of time,)

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  20. Interesting perspective. It reminds me of the time I spent in Bolivia, and my observation of the difference between the concept of the passing of time in the city and in the village. In the city, time ran by the clock and the calendar; in the village, it ran by the sun and the season.

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  21. This is great, I flicked it on my Facebook. I like the spirit but also the choice of words. And I agree: it’s only us who are linear and this will bite us in the ass eventually. I wish you time well spent, but I have no fears for you. ❤

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