Ode to Time

If I were God’s hands,
how can I obtain the
traces of you?
The layers, the atoms,
constantly evolving with the
ebb and flow
of moments.

If my fingers can unravel
all your words,
How many pages does
your body collect?
I lose my place, and feel separation
as I read.
Every word you speak,
is another language foreign to me.

If I scrape away every single
cell of you, how deep will I go?
Will I drown or melt
into your core.
Are you fire or water or neither?
Beneath my past,
Time, you still plunge deeper than me.

I am not God’s hands, and I will not
grasp you. My mortal body decays
as I speak. Time, when I die,
let me burn. Drowning is leaving
the world in silence.
And when I go, I want you to
hear me one more time.

About the Author

Although Annalee Fairley is originally from Mississippi, she is currently a resident of Petaluma, Ca and works with an AmeriCorps program. She received a degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing under the mentorship of talented writers such as Michael Farris Smith and Kendall Dunkelberg. During her time at MUW, she was published in the Ink&Nebula literary journal and received the Neill James Creative Writing Scholarship for my work in poetry and fiction.