Days Go By

It’s like a train. You hear it off, so far away, so faint…it comes so slow, as though it can’t make it.
Life is like that too, but soon, too soon, there it is,
Large and unstoppable, sometimes bellowing,
others almost silent, creeping, sliding, or pushing,
Or rumbling down inside.
Shaking you, even to the bones.
Suddenly passing…hissing and making you notice as it goes. Unable to stop.
Time is like that too.

It’s there so big …taking all your senses,
Expecting to be noticed and honored.
As it passes, you see those flashes, those glimpses,
Flickering pieces of light, or darkness,
Pieces just beyond touching, or even knowing,
But you try to see beyond, to form or capture the images. And sometimes you cannot.
Those slices, and fragments,
Torn and fleeting…torn by the ever-moving…
You wish it would just stop, to let you hold.
Days are like that.
Maybe… as you stand, confused by the noises,
you could put those parts straight in your mind.
Then it’s passed. You blink and turn your head.
“Oh!” You say to yourself. “It’s getting smaller, and quieter. I can hardly see it.”
Moments later you can’t remember quite how it all looked. It seemed so real…and now it doesn’t,
As a child’s toy that someday later will be lost, or given.
And he can’t quite remember just when or to whom.
Sometimes you long just to be there, with your toy.
Just to have that time again, but remembering is good.