Anita Stith Tafolla

Time Has No Speed

Time seems the enemy
as it staggers slowly through my teens.
Will I never grow out?
Seize control of my own life?
Learn what it means?

Then suddenly it's my friend
as it hides my inner flaws.
My blue eyelids and painted lips
seductively smile at the unending fools
young femininity draws.

More fool me, for the era comes
when everyone asks for more.
More knowledge of the world,
More love, More concern,
More substance at my core.

Grow in or die!
I don't understand...
They say these wrinkles mean
smiles aren't enough ... it's not fair.
Age was to be glory, not a demand.

All poets write their own endings.
Time favors none.
Some become elder statesmen.
Some faded barflies.
Time's message? What's done is done.

I Count the Hours

Einstein once said time is relative.
As the vehicle we inhabit goes faster,
time moves more slowly inside.
My life has been much that way.

Remember those random days of childhood?
Learning to tell time was confusing.
Told that hand moved through minutes,
you knew it was used to count the hours -
while the misnamed hour hand measured eternity.
Trapped inside watching rain was an infinity experience
puddles an instant of delight.

Relationships oh those are gauged in eons!
Years spent by mute phones,
Decades waiting for love to reciprocate.
Centuries as eyes lower in rejection.
Where is the unblemished skin, the glow?
Inside exuberant,
while the body accelerates through space.
Why could he not travel in my craft?
Count the same hours.

Nine months are forever.
Ask any mother.
Again, the bodies separate
allowing time to follow different orbits.
How can she be so old
and yet so young inside my heart.
Count the hours?
Minutes would satisfy my soul.

Would that I could reach the speed of light
that elusive thing that can be measured
but never attained.
It will not happen, for I slow.
My fuels are nearing empty.
Wishing will not make it so.
Contentment of a sort is reached.
Hours spent match hours watched.
A shadow in the sunset, I count the hours.

Guess Everyone Grows Older

Im finding it hard to comprehend.
Social Security time is coming up in a few months.
Actually - what I can't believe
is how little Ive learned.
But then, to be perfectly honest,
I never expected to make it half this far.

I danced and drank and partied
with the fraudulent laughter of a gawky wannabe
for I knew Id never see the other side of thirty.
Borrowing badly against thirty five.
Knowing debts would never come due.

Well, the punch line was inevitable.
30 came and went.
40 came and stayed a little longer than legal.
50 was a nightmare of clinical depression.
60 is here...and Im discovering Im not unique.
It seems everyone else thought the same thing,
or at least thats what they say.

Its reassuring to know how dumb people can be,

How many blunders we can make...

And still survive.