Thoughts While Pausing To Catch My Breath...

It writes a road-map on our skin

At night we might trace it with touch

And wonder at the cool chagrin

Of time’s insistent such-and-such

While we make plans and love and war

And pine for more than what we hold

But know we cannot jar the door

That bars us from yesterday's gold

And so we go from where we were

To where we are; half-glad, half vexed

The law of clockwork does not ere

Yet tells nothing of what is next

While we, with looking back surmise

That not much stays the same for long

And so we strain with hungry eyes

Toward the dawn of a new song

Because time’s fast-forward affair

Though it never alters its pace

Since first it sipped its draught of air

Can still surprise the human race

© Janet Martin