Image: Statue of Old Father Time by John Wormald Appleyard on the Tempus Fugit clock in Leeds, UK. Photo by Storye book. CC0 4.0
I often wish that just for once
he’d overlook someone down here,
as he wanders scything round his fields.
I wish that someone could live
to a hundred and fifty,
or more.
But no,
whether by a fall, or pneumonia in the cold winter,
or a lack of will to stay,
each of us goes,
and even those who linger,
and seem immune,
he takes in the end, in some ordinary way.
Apparently, there are a few
in hidden valleys of Kashmir,
or in huts on the hills of Ecuador,
who live till a hundred years have passed,
but he wanders up that way at last,
and gathers them in too.
Some stand out,
are clear to see,
and his sickle fells them early.
But even those who are flat,
who lie criss-crossed and low,
are hooked out with a smile,
and snipped off finally.
No, there is none,
who can live on and on,
and reward a flight of fancy.
In the end we all will fall,
for slowly as he goes,
sweeping his scythe,
with all the time in the world,
he takes us all.
1964