The Cusp of Time
written by: RC Larlham
@Mohawk742
Standing on the cusp
of time, wishing we could just
step off… if only
for a moment. But that great force-field wall
that carries time and us along
won’t have it, not for a minute—not
for a second—not for a moment. This
brutal, mindless thing we call age is but
another name for time
applied to our ephemerality that
makes us dream of immortality, nay
insists upon it.
There has to be a force out there
greater than that force-field
wall that separates us from the
joy of yesterday and
shoves our braced
unwilling feet inexorably toward
that precipice that ends all time
for any thinking being.
We seek again that one way out,
our window of hope.
Shall we make a god who
rules for us against this horror we
see coming from our natal day? If that
window leads to only paradise, what
of the father who rapes his child? The
mother who drowns her
sons strapped into their baby seats as
her car bub-bub-burbles
to the bottom? Shall we not make
a special place and god for them?
We spoke and it was so. And we
worshipped him/them/it as we strode
across the world, changing it;
changing us and morphing
our god/devil/gods/goddesses,
all for one and one for all…
and none for us.
Still, we stand upon the cusp
of time, terrified
of the wall behind and the yawning
chasm dead ahead—our self-made
gods no comfort to our screaming
souls at all.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
In early May 2016, my pancreatic remainder was rapidly failing, and my kidneys were plotting to kill me (they would nearly succeed a month later). I was blissfully unaware, but my back brain and my body did their best to warn me and help me fight to live. This poem was the first salvo in that battle, my first hint that anything was going south.
- Dandelion Girl - July 1, 2024
- Luvly Laura’s Little Black Dress - April 9, 2024
- Christmas Day 1956 - December 25, 2023
