Shores of Time

The next step, took his legs, a virulent flash,

The blinding pain, encompassed his gaze within

Spinning around, dancing in zeal, a gash

Flowing red, viscous from when it was thin;

The sight down, he saw, the glassy stone,

Jagged and rigid, unyielding and brazen

For the harm, saw it no reason to moan,

Weathered was it, to cut unaware men.

Strewn across, the undulating scene of stones,

Hindered around, he looked for harmless ways,

The prickly tops, surmounting the archaic cones,

More cuts, the hurt, thoughts for him to faze,

A gust of wind, a vortex violent, arose atop

The obstinate surface, now the seeming bullets clash

Tumultuously, the serene chaos, the dance lop,

Rain unto, now withered into dunes they mash.

In waning amazement, upon a healed foot, walks

He, dune after dune, raises and falls.

With a dune beneath, a figure with locks

Wild, untethered, frail stands he, distraught with galls.

The wraith of sand, the ethereal ancient beast

Wise and timeless, calls him upon,

To him, offers the wise, a luscious feast

Of time, into which, he was now born.

Asks he thus, “Ancient one, upon the lands

Gaze I, unbeknownst to me, for what I should see.

The sands I feel, warm though slip through my hands,

The truth of these shores, learn I through thee.”

The wraith, wordless, engulfed his thoughts,

View the far distances, through which he shall see

His time, the stream which blooms and which rots

Into expanses, time flows, ceased to be free.

“The stream meanders, untouched and pristine,

Not a grain, not the stones, not the shores pour

Into, pulling away, or muddling its sheen

None within, or around, calming its mighty roar.

Dawns in me, of the ceaseless flow, devout, infinite,

Pouring itself into the void, mysterious and dark.

Though grandiose, what story am I to knit

When my senses, is now but a lark?”

Stared into the abyss, the wraith, unbound

By words, dripping through it, without a thought,

His thoughts, the pressing words, a heaping mound,

Prodding the wraith, answers to it wrought.

A wave, tall, drowns the shores, the stream,

The man fluid, now flowing calm and serene,

Teases him visions, the astral story of time.

The waters from where begotten, him to ween,

Where from, where to, to him it to mime.

A past, unearthed, sees he his life.

To him, his past, a period forgotten since,

Memories of time, unfettered, a melodious fife,

Like the water, contained in, cannot rinse.

A present, unearthed, sees he his self.

To him, the present, a mirror upon which,

Reflects he, projecting a giant, a dwarf and an elf,

All he, his dreams, lustrous and rich.

A future, unearthed, sees he a dark void.

To him, the future, featureless and grey,

Sees he none, what he yearns, what to avoid,

The fife of his past, sees, at the end of his fray.

Blinks, focuses, stands the wraith, as before,

Puzzles he, “Know I not, of the truths foretold,

I saw, the visions, moments of my lore.

The latter lore, told me of my start,

My tunes, my days, my nights and my ways.

My living, of which some are sweet, bitter and tart,

Blinding once, my lore felt devoid of rays.

Ignorant, felt I, darkened and blotted by

The palette, where upon, laid the colours mine,

Thought I to vigour, not that they’d wry.

Making unseen, the tails that the heads dine.”

Asked he again, “The cycle of time profound

Realized I, and yet, I stand, devour

The tail, as the head. I acquiesce unbound,

And am still solid, should dissolve like the hour.”

Still unhinged, he sought his fate, looked on

Still, the wraith, into the meandering stream.

Gone, without a trace, like the dusk from one dawn,

Befuddling him, unable to let out even a faint scream.

A blurring sight, cleared into the known,

The rocks, stones, rigid through time, weathered.

Within the rocks, the sands had grown,

Unmoving and quiet, not even the wind heard.

“My hurt felt I, upon the bloody graze,

Never the warmth, once the sanded shores,

Each bend, each trough and each peak a maze

Flowing through time, with their infinite doors.”

The next step, took his legs, a virulent flash,

The blinding pain, encompassed his gaze within

Quietened and calm, healing in zeal, a gash

Flowing red, yet the pleasure and pain was akin.

  - Victor Van Volkner



Background of the poem
This poem, to me, represents how we, as humans, view the trials and tribulations of life. While we realise that time flows only in one direction, we don't often see it in that direction. Often clinging onto the past, the veritable dramas that unfold in our lives are all that we see, ignoring the happier moments that define who we are, in equal proportion to the more dramatic moments. This is about such a man, who is shown that his time includes both of these, and he needs to learn to take both with equal zeal and see the best of both. I'll hope that this intention of mine reaches someone reading the poem.