For those who came in late

Linear time
doesn’t care if you missed a bit,
went to the toilet,
weren’t paying attention,
needed subtitles.

Linear time, a vector;
tectonic shift,
never be the same again.

Instant by instant,
analogue in the noticing,
lip-service to cyclical movement
but emphatically progressive
leaves us clutching
at the coattails of possibilities
already gone.

Linear time is a net,
a map;
doesn’t care how I bleed month after month,
cannot tell me the sweetness
of summer’s first plum,
or that you will bring our coffee date forward a day.

Time cannot tell me
whether you will smile
when you see me.

Stef Rozitis is a high school teacher in Australia. They have 3 adult children and therefore desperately hope that our species begin to work together to save this planet. Read other articles by Stef.