timefulness

I always thought
having a child
would give me a sense of immortality;
a piece of me living on
in separate flesh.

But instead
you make me intently aware
of my own mortality.
My life gained a greater sense
of its own finity
when you were born.

I look at you
and experience the me I was
        when I was you,
and the me I am now,
and
        knowing this time to be so fleeting,
the me I will be;
and know that I’m never going to be young again,
not even this young,
and I don’t feel young now.

The moments that seem most timeless,
like pushing you on a swing this afternoon,
pulsate with a sense
of never coming again;
are timeful.
Are the fullness of my time.

Time spiralling backwards to my origins
and forwards to my own death;
containing your unlimited possibilities
and my inevitabilities.
Time stops,
holds its breath.
Time overflows.


Wendy Stefansson, 2001

This poem inspired the painting Hourglass Figures.