Expansive time will not be caught,
put on pause to cause delay.
Expensive time will not be bought;
beg nor borrow tomorrow’s day.
Time has not the nature to be still,
it’s too erratic to be framed.
It matters not your strength of will,
time will not be tamed.
Evasive time will not be gripped,
not be chained, with lock and bolt.
Elusive time will not be clipped;
not contained within a vault.
. Elapsed time has no recompense,
. it’s this regret that makes it tense.

© Tim Grace, 27 May 2011

To the reader: Time, as Shakespeare discovered, is most cruel on the living. We who age, suffer the ravages of time; have stolen our youthful prime. In the end, acceptance is our best defence. Once resigned to the impact of time, this beast ceases to be our enemy; never a friend, more an acquaintance. And as an acquaintance, time offers legacy; the past is an archive; a fathomless vault. Love lives, until the death of time, in a Shakespeare sonnet.

To the poet: Four blocks of verse related to a common theme; a coarsely sewn thread of thought about time. While not rhythmically satisfying, this sonnet achieves its interest through internal word-similarities (expansive and expensive; elusive and evasive). In a poem’s writing phase, the interest of word features is ever-present. As one word suggests another by sight or sound they both enter the realm of possible inclusion; a fusion of sorts.

time is tense