Vox Meditantis

They told me time was quicksand,
that it slips faster through the fingers
the tighter you try to hold it –
but I was eighteen and invincible,
certain I had decades to waste
on Sunday lie-ins and endless scrolling,
on putting off phone calls to my mother,
on saying “next time” to my father’s stories.

I nodded at their warnings
the way you nod at weather forecasts:
polite acknowledgement of something
that surely won’t affect you,
not really, not today.

But time, it turns out, doesn’t care
about our plans to appreciate it later,
doesn’t wait for us to become
the people we think we’ll be
when we’re ready to pay attention.

Now I’m the one who counts Sundays
like currency, who picks up the phone
on the second ring, who listens –
truly listens – to the ordinary stories
that become extraordinary
only when they’re finished being told.

The elders were right, of course:
youth is wasted on the young.
But perhaps that’s the point –
some truths can only be understood
through their loss,
some lessons require tuition
paid in irretrievable moments,
in conversations never had,
in the weight of “I should have”
settling like morning frost
on the landscape of what remains.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.