Time

I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.

Time is running out, that's how it feels. It's not that life has been unkind to me, on the contrary I would say that my life has been blessed with good fortune. It's just that as each year passes I value life more and more so I want to do so much while I still can. At the very time I realize how much I could do with more time I have less and less of it for myself as work eats away a large portion of my days while my children consume most of the rest.

Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.

In Dutch they call these the ' tropenjaren', an expression deriving from the time that many Dutch people spent very tough years in their tropical colonies. Families are symbiotic units but children also demonstrate parasitic characteristics with their parents as the host. I talk about this with my wife and we both hope that we can have some easy years when they are older but who knows what might happen. Will I still have the health to do everything I want to when I finally have the time?

And how should the flesh not quail, that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young, and not renewable, but man.

I never used to understand the pursuit of physical beauty. I was dumbfounded by bodybuilders and their desire to 'get big'. I was bluntly critical of anybody who would even consider cosmetic surgery. I never even once dyed my hair because of my ideas about people being what they are full stop. Now I see things differently. I see that many people are trying to save time, be it physically or mentally, by taking pills, slapping on creams or even going under the knife. That's what time has done to me, that's what I see now.

Extracts from "Mirror in February" by Thomas Kinsella