TIME’S HOLD
You are what might have been
on that alternative path,
my abandoned way re-discovered.
But what is now is salient;
you make me an offer,
propose to me a future
that will not arise
unless hope turns to reality
before Time tires.
When life was fast dissolving,
when my world
was being wrenched apart,
then, supporting your own cross,
you came from nowhere
to reach out, to connect,
to take my hope
and cherish it.
What I am left with
is no longer despair,
but the veiled thrill
of tomorrow’s augury.
You could resolve my need,
bring me that accord,
of touch, of feel, of senses,
of minds in tune.
What you do – for me, now,
is to engender lust,
that lust of my youth,
for life, for certitude,
which can repel my languor,
now sequestered by age,
and bring a new intensity,
revivify that spark
which once embellished all.
No longer my past innocence,
but a considered offering,
a last grasp at time’s hold on me.
Roland's Ragbag 