TIME AND TENSE

“Those who concentrate on the past have no future”

The priest said to me in his habit of dark,
Shiny shoes of the man pointing east and west
Holy water sweat bubbles; his sacred mark.
 
He could close his face up like the door
Of the confessional, shiny and hard and blank,
Now he knows that the future he promised
Us all was fool’s gold in Heaven’s bank.
 
Still he’s the one taught me to think of the tenses
Present continuous and future the same?
The past just a long list of very dead bodies
Or a lichen-dressed headstone that carries a name.
 
The futures packed into the next twenty minutes
When the angelus bell sticks out her brass tongue
Forget all the joys and the compliment sorrows,
All the winners and losers, every song ever sung.
 
Still, sometimes I think of my father and mother
And the  grandparent quartet that I never knew
Who moulded the man I am, better or worse,
Not one of the rabble, but one of the few.
 
The future was here a few seconds ago, now past
Like the shower of mist and of sheen
And the hands of the clock, and every new season
Converting the yellow and brown into green.
 
Answerable to no one but myself and me
And I never ask any questions of time,
Questions of asking and never reply,
Hour hand, minute hand, second sublime.