Time the Destroyer.

Dion Boucicault

‘Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.’

If you kill time, you injure eternity.

You can’t kill time; you can only spend it unwisely.

These are among my favourite quotes about that timeless subject, time. What is time and who controls it? What does time mean for each of us and how do we measure it? The Prodigal will try to describe time in layman’s terms as that is the only qualification he has for this task. What to give as a title to this attempt to describe the impossible. Death is the leveller so time must be the destroyer. That’ll do.

Time the Destroyer.

Yesterday’s cloud is today’s muddy water

Yesterday’s love is today’s lovely daughter.
Yesterday’s green is today’s flower blue
Yesterday’s dream today has come  true

I stand here a jester having tried for a king

The budgie had pedigree; just couldn’t sing
My crew went to college; I forked out the money
But the neighbours flew off with the milk and the honey.

They said I was handsome, just look at me now,

A profile like parchment, crooked drills for a brow.
I longed for a castle so stately and grave
I sleep in the corner of troglodytes cave.

Ambition I nurtured, from flicker to light

And watched it extinguish at coming of night
My hopes were the full of a mariner’s chest
They are now merely holes in my second hand vest.

We all wish for lofty not sure where to look

And the champion in waiting, in doubting is stuck
The priest at the bishop is looking in vain
And the desert is scanning the red sky for rain.

The winemaker waits for the grape to ferment

And sighs when it’s ready the first day of Lent.
The sinner repents from half-six to seven
Saint Peter then sells him a pass card for Heaven.

Tomorrows don’t happen just yesterdays past

Futures a joke and the promise can’t last.
Eyes become sockets and bodies make clay
Hopes disappear and dreams fade away.

Yesterday’s boy; today’s sturdy man?

Yesterday’s winner is today’s also-ran
Yesterday’s great ones today stand quite small
For time is the master; destroyer of all.