© 2012 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Caveat:Tempus Breviis

Suddenly I looked and you were there,
emerging from a winter’s worth of nights.
And, thawing at my feet, you spoke your soul:
an unexpected gush, a waterfall.
You told me haltingly what you had felt;
remembering the passion and the pain,
I answered with my own regretful words.

It’s Time, I said, the real enemy.
Don’t wait and wake up twenty years from now
lamenting what you did and didn’t do.
Learn this, I begged: Don’t squander precious days,
those days stretch into weeks and then to months,
the months transform like magic into years –
you blink and find you’re old and settled in.

But where you’ve nested is a bed of nails,
your soul and skin accommodating such
that what you really wanted can’t be felt.
It’s buried, covered over, dimmed with dust,
and trust me, digging out’s no easy task.
I’ve found, to my dismay, that dreams deferred
are often tarnished, reclamation slow,
sometimes impossible to vivify.

Look at yourself while still in sun you stand,
embrace the truth of what your heart requires.
Far better this than mediocrity,
than cursing should and shouldn’t haves long past.
© 1998, renewed 2011 RC deWinter

Digital oils; clock taken from an original
photograph shot February 24, 2010.

Tech specs: Photoshop 7, Filter Forge 3, Xero Clarity,
VP5 Gothic Oils