Now

Jan Seale

May 27, 2022

Now has been running away forever.

You get it fixed in position,

all set for contemplation,

you turn your head and it’s down the road.

Now has been freezing for a second

on a stopped clock  but what a trick

and it doesn’t count for the catchy

“When time stood still.”

Now has been briefly accounted for

on the shining faces of astronauts 

returning from deep space. If they saw it

they’re not telling NASA.

Now has been sounding like a cat’s meow.

Come to think of it,

Now twines the legs, is hungry, 

appears suddenly as Now here,

which when pronounced

like it teases to be remembered,

is Nowhere. I don’t want to make Now

a kissing cousin with Time,

But Now has been sassing Time, 

calling out that “Time is running out,”

has shown up in an identical outfit.

What party are they attending?

Jan Seale has had two books published during the pandemic, thanks to the editors of Lamar University Literary Press.  They are A Lifetime of Words (2020) and Particulars: poems of smallness (2021).