In the time I live—
somewhere between
the ticking clock and timeless thought—
I do not understand time.
I know it only as
the rhythm of night and day,
orbiting a distant star
we call the sun.
The digits glowing on clocks
shape the architecture of modern life.
But I experience time differently—
in the silhouettes cast on a bus window at dusk,
in the slow,
deliberate steps of those
still working past the age of rest,
in the changing timbre
of my children’s voices,
in the dark-shaded events
on my calendar,
in memories that surface
during traffic’s stillness,
in a song that stirs
both joy and ache
from a childhood half-remembered.
Time—
this continuum we’ve constructed—
is not just hours and minutes.
I am a product of intellect,
of ideology,
of cells spun
from the genetic thread of my parents
and the ever-changing world—
whether brilliant or broken,
cruel or forgiving.
This is how I know time:
through a moment of moments
never to be lived again.