A Manifest Fiction

I feel it
Creeping up
From behind

Feel it
Entering me
Affecting me

But in the mirror
The effects of time
Are too subtle
Too slow

Does my skin seem
Drier than yesterday
Not so smooth
Not so young

Are those wrinkles
Are those age spots
I can’t tell
Without my glasses

My new glasses
Progressive lenses
My new knee
Progressive deterioration

Time races ahead
Calls to me
From where I’m going
Shows me
In my mother’s face
The deep lines
The pain of rising
From her armchair

She seems so close to…

Death
The end of
Time

Yet still…
Still I feel
As if time stands still
As if I was born just yesterday
That I will never die
That I always was
And always will be

Time is a manifest fiction
Measured with an ephemeral vessel
Housing an infinite spirit

Today
This vessel feels a little
Old

My body
Reminding me
It has only so long

So the I that is forever
Revels in this gift
Of time manifest

Feels the pain
Feels the bliss

Smiles deeply
At a face in the mirror
The face of a vessel
Just visiting time
Now so very deeply lined
Yet it gleefully smiles back