softly, the passage of time

nineteen years // and put myself together again

there is something very strange about

the way that time runs over 

not like a pot left to boil

or an unwatched tap

but like the slippery etchings of water on rocks

one day solid and whole,

the next torn away and covered

in gallons of rushing water

it echoes

first through virgin untouched valleys

then through cavernous halls

and then through the rush and bustle of sprawling metropolises 

we are not the first

and we will not be the last

and then it twists and contorts

a hundred years is either an age

or a second 

it comes to a jarring halt 

slowing down when it shouldn’t

speeding up when the years are just right

golden ages seem to only last a minute

something destined to repeat 

but not for another thousand years

or a blink of an eye

empires crumble beneath unweighted mass

there is no true king but time

rushing over millennia like water over stones,

rocks, pebbles, careful not to touch 

just quickly, quietly

in the blink of an eye

or the last breath of an age

Author's Note

december 2015- my first poem, won a dorm prize (which isn't exactly an amazing testimonial.) I like the metaphor here, but I think there's too many in them.