"WE TAKE NO NOTE OF TIME BUT FROM ITS LOSS"

I ****** you from
your dying

place you here
outside time

words and memory
conspire

make you forever
the boy you were

tell you to go play
on a day

you could
never forget.

Go on father
be this child

who never can
believe he can die.

*

“The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.”

"By Nature's law, what may be, may be now;
There's no prerogative in human hours:

Where is tomorrow? In another world. . ."

Fragments of Young's poem fled through my mind as my Da lay dying. In my mind I talked to him all the time and sang songs to him. I tried to place him beyond this hour...bring him back to a past where he was but a boy and happy.

Night Thoughts

Edward Young (1742-1745)