Not Going To Make It

there are times when I realize that I’m actually not going to make it

          in the afternoon when it is quiet, save for the ticking of a clock

then it’s twenty years ago or twenty years from now, but it is all the same

          and I’ll be gone for a long time, quite soon, in the larger scheme of things

the sun is shining across the mountains and on down into the room

          and things just pause a moment as I work upon my knees

I know for sure just then that I am not really going to make it

          and although I might shed a tear, it’s not for the fear, but for its beauty

in those unexpected times when we pause within a short reflection

          we sometimes catch a glimpse of, as far as we can see

then I saw myself as if it were from a different point in time

          I saw again the boy, this man thought was gone so long ago, elated

and in that same moment the sunset gently faded

          as the man now weak and old tried to remember from where he came

then I knew with certainty that I was not going to make it

          but still, time had passed me by quite slowly and left a quiet comfort

while the measured clock ticks guide the afternoon sun across the room

          I have nothing left to say, save a long and drawn out sigh

though there are many times that this illusion still vibrates complete

          far stronger are the moments when the real light shows me the way

in between the ordinary and the things which change our lives

          flows a deeper river that we must ford from time to time

as we stretch our legs to start upon another journey

          the shadow of the hand of time momentarily sweeps across us

so what time have we really saved even as we count it and where is it even now

          since in a stream of disjoint instants, we see that we cannot make it

there are those brief and lucid moments when I realize who I am

          a small boy frightened by not remembering never being of this world

slowly do the dust motes float through the slanting sun

          they have always held a place for me in their silent dance 

in between my feeble wheezings there is a parting of the clouds

          and far off in the distance I see clearly that I could never make it

in the quiet stillness that moves in to soothingly surround us

          after all the mundane chatter dies away, then it becomes so clear

in the million years before I came here and in the first million next to come

          I see that even those times are lost in the billions piled up on either side

as I realize that the sun never really pauses in my little room

          so I note with some sadness that there is also nothing I can stop and hold