This precious time
This passing time
This joyful time
This desperate time
This crucial, lonely, hopeful, helpless, impossible, precious time
We play it, mislay it, we bend it, upend it.
We try to taste it, don’t waste it but savour it.
Till we’re battered and trodden, stained and sodden,
Both ancient and modern
This precious time
Where paid work and art-work and work-outs are patch-worked
With many dropped stitches and last-minute switches
Till we’re frayed at the edges and clinging on ledges and backwards through hedges.
This precious time
It trickles through fingers like dry sand and lingers
We try to hold it, to mould it, to shape it
With multi-task fumbles and furious mumbles,
Always it crumbles
This precious time
This passing time
This joyful time
This desperate time
This crucial, lonely, hopeful, helpless, impossible, precious time
Don’t wish it away, push on through
Don’t wish it away, push on through
Hold on, slow down
Take a breath, look around
A stitch in time saves nine
Hold your horses, take your time
Treasure the moment, pleasure in torment
Killing time, everything’s fine
Don’t wish it away, push on through
Don’t wish it away, push on through
This time has passed.