Waiting for No One

They say time
waits for no one,
moving on,
a tractor along a furrow,
turning dark soil like broken
chocolate into tomorrow,
rattling through the season.

We, like seagulls, follow,
grey-headed envoys
in the air,
cursing the changing
atmosphere.

Kim M. Russell, 2016

waiting-for-no-one

Image found on http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/gulls,tractor/Interesting

My response to dverse Poets Pub Tuesday’s Poetics – It’s all in the timing!

This week’s Poetics is hosted by Lillian, who recently returned from a 40-day trip to Singapore, Bali, Australia and New Zealand where, she tells us, she and her husband had the time of their lives – which got her to thinking about the word ‘time’. She says that one website states that ‘time is something we deal with every day, and something that everyone thinks they understand. However a compact and robust definition of time has proved to be remarkably tricky and elusive . . . time has many aspects and appears to represent different things to different people in different circumstances.’

‘Time’ can be used as a noun, adjective (time bomb, time signature) and as a verb (to time a race or an event). It can be considered in the past, present or future tense.

And then of course, there’s that very famous beginning to Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859:  ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’

Lillian would like us to write a poem that includes the word ‘time’ and/or a poem about a particular ‘time’ etched in our memories.

50 thoughts on “Waiting for No One”

  3. Having spent some of our early married lives living out in rural Iowa, I especially love the description of turning over the soil like broken chocolate…….I remember those green John Deere’s plugging along in the fields out back of our house…..sometimes into the late evenings with headlights on! Planting for tomorrow indeed. And then I remember also, seeing some of the old John Deere’s sitting, abandoned beside farm buildings….no cabs, no air conditioning….very different these days!
    Intersting to see this image with the gulls — your words are great here .. “envoys”
    Love this take on the prompt!

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    1. The chocolate thing occurred to me when we were driving down to visit my mum the other weekend. We were travelling through Suffolk and there were fields on either side that looked just like that. My husband agreed when I pointed it out to him.

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  6. Wow, you packed so much into so few lines. Like Lillian & Victoria, you sank the poetic hook in me with the superb word smithing of /a tractor along a furrow/turning dark soil like broken/chocolate into tomorrow/.

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  13. This is a fabulous piece of poetry, and what you did with the tractor in its furrow is very endearing- my husband has worked in agriculture with tractors for years and his stories about tractors were never this graceful and interesting. Much love.

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    1. Thank you, Alison, I think when we live in the countryside we see tractors differently. Although I was born in a city, I have come to love tractors and the land, having lived in the middle of Ireland for a few years and in Norfolk for nearly 25 years. I could sit and watch ploughing for hours!

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  16. Best of times.. yes..
    Worst of time.. no..
    i for
    one
    DancE
    and SinG
    onLY noW
    EmoTions..
    SeNSes SinGinG
    DanCinG toGeThER iN trilLioNs
    oF peptide inter-conNecTions
    continuinG to gRoW Ocean
    Waves RiVers StreAMs wHoLe
    now
    and
    never
    otHEr
    aS now
    Ocean
    forever
    one
    eternal now..:)

    And when people ask me
    what i’M on.. Cocaine.. LSD..
    Molly.. Mushrooms or whatever
    as i float aCross terrestrial Land iN dAnce
    as any fish swum by water and bird or bee
    flown
    by
    air
    WiLL
    SinG
    i SonG..
    i’M oN God..
    and they laugh
    and weigh on iN aN
    iLLusion of TiMe mY FriEnd..
    iT iS whAT iT is as experience..
    multi-Verse ViewS unliMiTed UniVerses
    through eYes of mYriad God ViEWs.. mY FriEnd2..:)

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    1. ‘DanCinG toGeThER iN trilLioNs
      oF peptide inter-conNecTions
      continuinG to gRoW Ocean
      Waves RiVers StreAMs wHoLe’ = an world covered in amino acids – sounds scary and beautiful but totally natural . Nothing wrong with being high on life!:)

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