Fragments Of Time

Fragments of Time
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Are fragments what we throw away
Or shards that pierce us in the heart?
I gather all my torn scraps up
From my long-held , unwatched basket...

And, all at once, they show me to a life,
A part in many scenes, each one unfilled,
A kind of every-moment in- now note-
All distant now, but which I know by rote.

Am I that girl, who made her arrows fly,
Or sought for silence? These don’t reconcile
To one clear shape, a shape that might be I,
Through chinks of time, that flow erratically.

It took an age to tease
Apart those moments of an age
Where every second must gain equal weight
With every other one: child’s vision...

An orange segment shared
Glowing sunset hands;
A sweetness on the tongue
As vital as a teacher’s praise, to me.
I hold a piece like this, indefinitely.

That dreaming child who could not tell
Her dreary, lonely moment of long hell:
I stood before the pale school clock.
I dared not share my inability.

Its tick was brutal. Its dark arms
Meant only ill to such a child.
The time itself was split
In stabbing me.

The cruel hands turned
The time I could not tell
Relentlessly, the minutes ticked.
And as the minutes ticked, I cried.