A Measure of Time

Take time make time waste time all kinds
of time.  Time flies, flees and then there
is Father Time benevolent
and wise. Do you want to know the
truth?   He’s nothing but a liar

and a cheat, playing a long con,
dealing Texas Hold ’em with the
ace of spades hidden up his sleeve,
hustling three-card Monte on a
cosmic scale, laughing at all the

suckers, smiling face concealing
a villainous bounder and snake
oil salesman always promising
miraculous cures, but leaving
on the early train with orders un-

fulfilled.  And what could he offer
anyway?  The present moment
is nothing more than an opaque
illusion, like a thief’s shadow
on the wall, or a movement glimpsed

out of the corner of your eye;
a motion both furtive and in-
substantial, vanishing in an
instant. And what of tomorrow?
It pounds against the door like an

insistent creditor until
it gains entry, then tosses hope
into the street, arms and legs
all jumbled and tumbled together.
Perhaps I am being unkind.

Perhaps Father Time is not the
dark character I have made him
out to be.  Perhaps he is just
a charming rogue. Or perhaps not.
Nothing is definitive.