Part 1: Time and Other Thoughts

When I was just a young teenager around 15 years of age, I was fascinated with the concept of time. I clearly remember one winter evening inside the barn, feeding the young cattle their nightly portion of hay. As usual I was thinking about something else, this time about time itself. It occurred to me that time was not merely some mechanical or clinical measure. Rather it seemed much more fluid or malleable. Perhaps it was because I had just started taking up running and was beginning to measure and time all my runs – the intervals, the repeat quarter miles, the half miles, the 220 yards etc. That same evening, I wrote this:

“Time is not merely a simple fraction of that which the earth requires to rotate around her ‘King’. Instead, time occurs and accelerates in direct proportion to the intensity of the activity that takes place within it. The more intense your activity, the faster it moves….”

This was well before I was introduced to the concept of relativity whereby Albert Einstein explains that all bodies have their own time coordinates. There is no such thing as absolute time – there are places and conditions in this universe where time is infinite and other places where time does not exist at all. I think I was onto something…...!

I was reminded of these thoughts when one of my friends upon receiving my second book of poems, asked me: “Where to do you find the time?” My response is the first poem in this series.

Find the Time

How do you find the time to write? A friend once asked of me. I gave quick thought and then replied, The ‘rhyme’ finds time for me!

It comes in unexpected ways, A setting sun; a quiet breeze, The rhythm of a morning run, A fluttering leaf, the raging seas.

Each day new opportunities present, A sound, a scene, a conversation, So much fodder for the soul, The chance for new sensation.

A deeper question does then arise, Do we create or just uncover? Do these musings pre-exist? Our task, but to discover.

Me thinks that it’s a bit of both. The truth lies deep in yonder blue. Take pause each day just to reflect, And let the ‘rhyme’ find you.