Talking to Time

On his ivory chair, he sat smothered in sand.

Flakes dancing from his coarse feathery beard

as air fluttered from his mouth of cracking teeth,

yellow and tepid, filled with sand and hair.

I was silent to him.

I was wary of him.

“Father Time?” I spoke as the air chilled from my lips,

the aged figure cricked to me, his bones chattering as

sand fluttered from his cloak, fluttered from his bones.

“Yes,” his voice echoed in the air as it lingered within my ears,

“What is it you seek?” the white sand tickled my nostrils.

I spoke but no words left my mouth.

I spoke nothing, but he knew.

I spoke nothing but the truth to his ears.

Time grabbed a handful of sand from his beard,

the fine sand slipped through his hand,

a trickling stream of time,

a trickling stream of life,

light

glistened through the stream as figures of the past

arose from its face.

Figures that I knew-

Figures that I did not know-

Figures that I am.

Figures that are all.