Final Impact

Chihuly Garden and Glass museum in Seattle. Photogravure by Edward S. Curtis

Time runs through my fingers like tears beneath a veil

Counting forward

the way my father predicted our future

sliding rule in hand precisely measured:

pool, bubble plastics, candles, obesity, saccharine, space travel, melting ice caps.

Here am I caught in day to day

Year end reports, performance reviews, annual goals

Weeks spent reporting to the past - - - -

while ice melts, fires burn, air poisons.

The future hurries forward forever 

unrelentingly,

uncaringly

as bored meetings

determine unfathomable horse races.

Where next?

Time counts forward in logrythmic functions. 

Pinocchio on the stage

Holding on to strings

nose grows, donkey ears sprouts, braying forward,

When does the path tear open the veil?

When will the timid stamp finality?