Making Time Material - Nov 17 2021

 

Making Time Material

Nov 17 2021

When, after such a long absence

I returned to the old neighbourhood

it won't surprise you to hear

how everything looked smaller.

But despite some incremental changes

it was still much the same.

Even though the children had largely vanished,

and the street that was their playground

had been abandoned to cars.

Even though the house that once was ours

smelled of exotic food

instead of plain cooking

and packaged soup.

And even though years had passed

and new people displaced the old.

Although some diehards had stayed,

incrementally aging

in the graceful decay

of their family homes.

Time goes fast

and gets even faster,

its passage compressed

as we get older;

as we settle into sameness,

and entire years

fade from human memory.

So it took the sapling

I planted half a century ago

to give substance to time,

its wood

incorporating each year

year after year.

Making time material,

a physical object

that occupies space

and can be seen and felt.

I looked up into its canopy

of overarching branches

and sheltering leaves.

Touched the bark,

taking comfort in its warmth

and pleasing roughness.

And with all my weight

leaned against its trunk,

which was immovable

and thicker than a grown man.

A basic thing, a tree.

But sobering.

How change is relentless, no matter what.

How age has crept up on me.

And also, by my simple act, how I'd left a legacy

in the relay of life,

a baton

handed-off

in the next generation

and whoever will follow.

A living thing, that is certain to outlast me,

rooted in the ground

where life began

for me as well.