Time. It is an artifice. It is not measurable by the ticks of a clock, nor the stopwatch. Those are measurable elements, but have nothing, per se, to do with time.
Albert Einstein taught us that time is relative. A second of time on earth is not the same length as elsewhere in our solar system. Across the galaxies, a duration of “time” becomes subject to the spatial physics of objects – such as a planet, an asteroid…or intelligent lifeforms. Our memories of our own lifespans are influenced by the same laws of physics as the moments we experience. However, the human mind – the memories it holds – are shaped and influenced by this artifice we call, “time.”
When PTSD enters the mind, it can altar entirely our experience of those memories, and shape our perceptions of the passage of time. This is one of the elements at play in my next book, CHARLIE’S LADDER (coming in Q4, 2023…at least, that’s what my experience of this artifice tells me ;-)
The poem, ‘Today, It Was,’ is a work I began forty-five years ago. Recently extracting it from the “burlap vault,” I saw things that compelled me to re-cast the poem against the artifice of time. When I first scrawled it in my notepad, standing on the icy shores of Lake Huron, I couldn’t have imagined that this poem might return to me forty-five years hence, and demand a more complete examination of the sense of loss we feel when relationships fail…across the “chasm of time lost.”
Thus, I humbly submit to you that time is, for each of us, the trajectory of our lives. I invite you to absorb this poem and apply your own experiences. Peace. Shalom.