Poem: Nature's Speed

In this poem we have a fairly straightforward look at the subjective experience of time, particularly at the contrast between the way the cycles of nature and the passing of generations can seem to speed by while our own relatively quick actions can seem to drag or not to move at all. There’s more going on than that obvious theme, but that central idea provides the context for everything else.

Nature’s Speed

The moon moves fast from light to light:
only a month, a flickering flame,
as I dream no more in hours or days,
but years, and decades, and generations.
Even the seasons’ slow pull is a spinning top
because it is certain it will still turn.
When I think where I might stand in 40 years,
and with who or with the Spirit alone,
I know, though my steps outpace the sky,
they plod because they track no road,
and the sudden spring where I might drink
and wash my feet this day or next
is not as certain as the moon,
the tulips or the falling snow
that will swiftly turn past my old age
and past my children until the end.
It hurts to dream of water when you
are lost. It is slow to search an hour
for a cool stream that may not be.