Time (poem)

I wonder what would happen if time ran out.

Would everything freeze and stay as it was?

Or would it shatter into a million, implacable pieces,

That would float away and never come back?

Though, I doubt I'll make it to the end of time,

Or if anyone will at all,

But I think I have the right to speculate

On what is to come, instead of circumventing

On what is already done.

People always say to look to the past,

When something puzzling needs getting done,

But the past can't speculate on what is to come

As nothing ever turns out the same as it was.

But no one can say for sure what is already done,
Though they could write what it might hold,
I have to say that the past may hold little resemblance
To the events that they said unfold.

And if you press to hard to try to control,

Everything, both done and to come,

Will crack at its leather-bound seam,

The seam that was never reinforced

Despite the fact that the pages it held together,

Were written up and read abroad and speculated on,

But the seam never was.

I can't say with certainty what is to come,

Or even what's already done,

And I don't know how much time is left

Before time runs out

But I can say that the seam still needs to be reinforced,

Before anything more can be written.