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In the Middle
of a life that’s as
complicated as everyone else’s,
struggling for balance,
juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my
grandfather’s
has stopped at 9:20; we
haven’t had the time
to get it repaired. The
brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don’t ring. One
day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and
the leaves have already fallen,
our parents gone, it
happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between
morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return.
Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell
of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog
pushes his great head between,
his tail is a metronome, ¾
time. We’ll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us,
running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but
sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the
hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of
stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of
time.
~Barbara Crooker
Crooker, Barbara. “In the Middle.” Good Poems for Hard
Times. Ed. Garrison Keillor. NY: Penguin Books, 2005. 265.
