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Pressed for Time
Though life is good, it doesn’t last that long,
And so we’re always left desiring more.
Remember, though, you bought it for a song—
Did you expect a grand eternal tour?
We find we’re subject to a grave condition
That challenges our hearts and tests our faith,
Where all our vaunted powers of cognition
Add up to useless shavings from a lathe.
Our loved ones die, and surely so do we,
Despite how much we’d like to linger longer;
If only we could pay a simple fee
To grow, not weaker, but forever stronger.
Now, as it happens, no one understands
The nature of those lethal cosmic powers
That regulate the turning of the hands
Of clocks, which tick away our mortal hours.
Though not for us to second-guess the Lord
By dreaming up a friendlier design,
Senescence is a plight we can’t afford
Nor with His promised Providence align,
And dying is a fate we find untoward,
As might the poor canary in a mine.
first published in The Lyric (2024)
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C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden. Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India. His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.
First, let me praise you and your poem for using the word, “Senescence,” the process by which living cells no longer divide, but do not die, causing age-related diseases. How perfectly trenchant is this serious poem about the lives of humans on earth. The greatest lines that impacted me were:
” Where all our vaunted powers of cognition
Add up to useless shavings from a lathe.”
Talk about “dust to dust” in a striking metaphor! I have always admired your poetic portrayals and this is no exception.
Roy, I agree with you about those two lines. The entire poem is good, but those lines hit with the force of recognition.
For me, at my age, Roy, “senescence” is not an abstract concept, and I’ve always been inordinately fond of sawdust, especially the very fragrant sort produced from milling cedar.
I loved the Shakespearean humour in ‘a grave condition’, and the overarching tone was just right for the topic, I felt.
Thanks for the read.
One might even say that Shakespeare is the father of modern English humor, and that’s no joke. There are many grave conditions, Paul, as you know. When you wrote “overarching” could you not instead have written “supercilious?”
Retrospective and introspective – laughing at death ironically because that’s all anyone can do. The simile to the canary at the end is interesting — not the usual symbolic use of the canary-in-the-coal-mine image, and therefore fresh. Nice pun on “grave,” too.
We can laugh at death all we want, but death just keeps laughing back at us. The canary is merely the first victim in a universal terminal event. “Grave” is its own pun.
Very, very good CB: the outstanding line here is ‘… you bought it for a song’ – since the word universe means one-verse, one-song, the resonance of that line is brilliant and incorporates the entire paradox of existence. Nice.
By Jesus, James, I hadn’t realized that I had done all that. “Bought it for a song” is an expression that means you paid nearly nothing for it, and indeed, life is a gift from God. Is existence really a paradox, or is it actually more properly called a conundrum?
By Jesus, indeed, CB!!! Technically, you are correct: conundrum is the right word, though even better, I feel, is the word, ‘mystery’.
Exactly, James. We theosophers call it the mystery of existence.
Every line laden with wise wordplay, C. B., that escorts readers knowingly through reflections on the somber subject. It’s so good I could almost call it “entertaining.” The canary recalled a coal mine turned museum in Pennsylvania, where I was told canaries had been brought into service to prevent the deaths of boys during the days of child labor. Youngsters needed more aboveground breaks than older miners, though they were exceptionally useful at chipping coal out of close quarters. I agree with James Sale about “bought it for a song” as outstanding line. The kind of song produced by a newborn is not a hit that can pay for a grand tour. This poem, though, is a hit in my opinion.
I can’t wait, Margaret, for the loonies to come out of the walls to cry aloud, “Save the canaries!” You might not believe how much it pleases me that this poem resonated with you. As for me, I’ve grown small, but I keep chipping away.
I find it interesting that many people who believe in an afterlife still want to stay here and resist leaving. I guess part of it is about leaving loved ones. Another part is that the transition is sometimes painful. Then there is the uncertainty of “what dreams may come” on the other side. On the other hand, don’t you think it would get tiring to live in the same physcial landscape for eons?
Well, Alan, you must have heard already that old trope: Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Macbeth’s worries are not my worries, and as for your final question: I’m willing to give it a try.
C.B., this poem speaks (on many levels) to my head and to my heart of the brevity and fragility of our lives on earth and our humble human condition… and woven through the wisdom and wit of this beautiful poem, lies a silver thread of wonder that sings in soft, golden tones to my soul. If this was your aim – very well done indeed. If it wasn’t… then I’m all the better for reading it, regardless. C.B., thank you very much indeed!
Sometimes, Susan, I think we share a mind. At other times I only wonder where the time went.