Time Is a Vessel
On time as both gift and thief — and the small, repeated hope underneath.
Time is the one resource you can’t earn more of. The poem sits with that — the cruelty of it, the gift of it, and the quiet hope that what you’ve done with it adds up to something.
Time is a vessel
Of unrealized dreams
Time is of essence
What does life mean?
I can’t devalue
The lessons I’ve received
Some of them were cruel
Some of them were mean
Time can be so hollow
Where did it all go?
Time was never your friend
It’s our greatest gift, but when does it end?
I sense a rift now
What could it be?
Maybe my dreams
Will become reality
(I hope
I hope
I hope)
The closing parenthetical does something the rest of the poem can’t. It strips out the eloquence and leaves the prayer. I hope, I hope, I hope. That’s all most of us are doing, when we’re being honest about it.
The dreams might. The dreams might not. Either way: keep going.
— JTC