For me, time passes slowly. For you, with great haste. It’s strange, the ways in which this world works. The ways that time works. Tick. Tick, goes the clock, living a journey that is boundless. Did you realise that I am older than you are? I’m not lying. Promise. Your father’s father chose me from a line of pairs, on a velvet cloth, on a wobbly table, on a cobbled road, in a crooked street in Belgium.
Came 1942, and your grandfather had been taken by the yellow fever. He put up quite the fight and they tried to save him with their wacky remedies and rest. But he died. His son, your father, was nearing six and all he hoped for on his birthday was to look through my familiar lens.
He wore me on his nose all day.
Your poems are a delight. Though, sometimes they cause one reason to tire. Countless tales of loveless men bring about big yawns when retold a thousand times. Perhaps you should try something new. Perhaps it is too late. In recent weeks you’ve been coughing so hard that clouds are created like a looming fog and I can no longer see.
I think you’re going to die soon.
- Cate Gordon-Thomson
