Back home from the airport
after a cancelled flight
Fog whispering the secret
of the next 24 hours in my ears
Time sheds like fairy dust around
the telephone, computer and front door
Even the rabbits and cat
in the backyard expect nothing
until the neighbor comes tomorrow

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero
I remove my wristwatch
Cover the kitchen wall clock
Silence the Black Forest cuckoo
The incessant alarm that every
second, minute, hour brings closer
the moment our own tick stops

This day will not be stolen by cold facts
Not when the sun in its circle of life
warms with golden arms through the window
And when a candle breathes the energy
of orange blossom spring into the air

The banana tree in the atrium
that has come full bloom waits to be picked
The ready-to-be-recycled inner core
of the tree chopped into pieces for pulp
The slow dance of a papermaker
accompanied by Mozart
Who was so driven that maybe he never
had a block of metronome-free time

I hope he did have dark chocolate and the sin
of red wine while the sun was still young
The swoon of exhaustion and the sweet taste
of satisfaction that a perfected craft sparks
A hundred deckle-edged sheets and I’m on fire

At midnight I make amends with Time
over dinner of oatmeal and ice cream
Invite it into the bedroom
for a glass of limoncello, chapters of Zane Grey
And when light is swallowed into the belly of night
Its heart no longer beats death’s war drum
An ally now whose hands break
the 2:00 a. m. ice of aloneness

Whose voice sings a sleep mantra
assuring that my flame hasn’t flickered still
That the sun will be born again
Day will look through the window
That Time will wring the water
from the handmade papers in their passage

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero: “Seize the day,
putting as little trust as possible in the future.”—Horace