Prisoners of the Present
As ancient as the Mountain,
born of the core
and thence returning.
A Man stands
eyes following the Sun
looking at no thing
another circle closing.
Sunrise. Sunset. Sunrise.
A hundred years passed,
the Man still stands.
The Mountain does not notice.
Milky arrow of time above
unchanged,
a thousand years passed,
sons of sons of sons forgotten.
”A moment,” says the Mountain
noticing the Man.
A second.
Now gone
into the past, another from the future
takes it’s place.
None can reach the future
nor live in the past,
forever prisoners of the present.
Even the Mountain.
The river of time carries all
in a single direction.
The unborn remain unconcerned,
floating to and fro
above the milky waters of time,
smiling.
Another second passes,
an electron dies a thousand deaths.
The middle-aged behemoth of jagged rock,
half a million years old,
is milling about too quickly.
The Planet does not notice.
We are all unborn.
The prison of the present
a product of imagination,
sentenced by ourselves.
How would you live
if you had a million years?
The Man on the Mountain blinks.
Forgot him self for a moment
of ten thousand years.
No prison. No prisoner.