He is time

[REW]

He is time
 
kisses me hello with golden dawn,
offers me wisdom from the stars,
soothes my wounds with balm,
and loves me from the winking moon,
 
But he moves slowly when I want him to go fast,
stands still when things are unbearable,
speeds when I want a moment to last.
Sometimes he even teases me to try
and catch him.
 
Might as well attempt
to hold a slippery water snake.
 
With each revolution around the sun he
has watched me toddle then run,
mature from tender and angelic
to fresh-faced, frisky and coltish,
then vibrant like new green leaves
and brilliant virgin blooms--to tired,
wearily weathered as untreated
shingles near the shore pounded
by three category fours in a row.
 
Sometimes he seems cruel.
Teaching isn’t always kind;
the learning is hard.  But in the end
knowledge, a friend.  How else
is one to learn to balance buckets
overflowing the brim without sloshing
or spilling; lifting makes you strong.
 
He instructs me to pluck those first white
hairs, wince at lines that aren’t even there
yet, then not to care--over stretchmarks,
droops and sags, or dye resistant grays,
to even be proud of my age.
 
Then before I am ready or just right,
maybe even way past my idea of when,
he will send me goodbye into the night,
saying, “it is time” and I will say,
“farewell father, father time.”         

He is time
 
kisses me hello with golden dawn,
offers me wisdom from the stars,
soothes my wounds with balm,
and loves me from the winking moon,
 
But he moves slowly when I want him to go fast,
stands still when things are unbearable,
speeds when I want a moment to last.
Sometimes he even teases me to try
and catch him.
 
Might as well attempt
to hold a slippery water snake.
 
With each revolution around the sun he
has watched me toddle then run,
mature from tender and angelic
to fresh-faced, frisky and coltish,
then vibrant like new green leaves
and brilliant virgin blooms--to tired,
wearily weathered as untreated
shingles near the shore pounded
by three category fours in a row.
 
Sometimes he seems cruel.
Teaching isn’t always kind;
the learning is hard.  But in the end
knowledge, a friend.  How else
is one to learn to balance buckets
overflowing the brim without sloshing
or spilling; lifting makes you strong.
 
He instructs me to pluck those first white
hairs, wince at lines that aren’t even there
yet, then not to care--over stretchmarks,
droops and sags, or dye resistant grays,
to even be proud of my age.
 
Then before I am ready or just right,
maybe even way past my idea of when,
he will send me goodbye into the night,
saying, “it is time” and I will say,
“farewell father, father time.”         

Was curious as to why you abandon the rhyme scheme, yet bring it back at the end.  I'd get rid of it altogether, myself, but this is only a personal preference. Reason? I started looking for it and forget the poem for a few seconds. There are little things (e.g. you have a  question to end stanza 5, yet no mark to reference it). Again, stuff like this made me think of something else beside your poem.  

Love S3.  Nice.  

intro into the poem was a bit confusing also.  "kisses" is a bit odd to start.   I've seen poets use the title as a step into the first line of the poem but yours really doesn't do that, at least grammatically.  

Like the internal rhyme (e.g. sun/run & there/care).  Stuff like that moves me along in the poem and shares the musicality of the rhythm w/o being intrusive.  

That's all I got.  Thanks for posting.

Thank you for your remarks 71 Degrees.  I at one point had titled this, "It is Time"  and the first line began He kisses me hello...so in my modifications it sounds like I might have created an awkwardness to be modified.  I was not naturally inspired to write this.  It was something I created in response to a prompt.  I generally write about dark subjects.  And I do not rhyme.  Recently I have been experimenting with rhyme form, with sestinas and sonnets.  This was a bit of a lighter topic, so I wanted some rhyme.  I did not want to overdo it with the rhyming though or force things.  You have brought up some points that I will certainly consider for the revision process.  I suppose I started rhyming again toward the end because I felt it building to the ending and it for me it seemed to alter the pace.  It is good to know that these inconsistencies are distracting. I do like the rhyming that there is.  I do not want to take it all out at this time.  I suppose I am wondering if I changed the pattern in the first stanza, if it would make any difference.  For instance if I had the line about the stars appear right before the one about the moon, would altering the pattern if that would make any difference?

I did not use a question mark after the question because I didn't intend it as a question or even as a rhetorical question. I have the lines, "How else
is one to learn to balance buckets
overflowing the brim without sloshing
or spilling; lifting makes you strong" as a statement that begins with how but isn't actually asking how.  And I wanted lifting makes you strong to be closely linked and I couldn't have done that with a question mark.

You have given me some things to think about.  Thank you for commenting.

---

He is time
 
kisses me hello with golden dawn, hmm... This sounds like a complete sentence, kinda...
offers me wisdom from the stars,
soothes my wounds with balm, I feel like this is missing a syllable or two. Or maybe keep this but swap it with the line below; the transition from  dawn to stars to moon would feel more comfortable and the change of flow from this line could benefit the transition to the next stanza as well
and loves me from the winking moon,
 
But he moves slowly when I want him to go fast,
stands still when things are unbearable,
speeds when I want a moment to last.
Sometimes he even teases me to try
and catch him. I would lose these last two lines. They don't seem to go with the other three, plus I'm kinda a sucker for form and it might look nice going from a four-line stanza to three to two-line stanza.
 
Might as well attempt
to hold a slippery water snake.Right?
 
With each revolution around the sun he
has watched me toddle then run,
mature from tender and angelic
to fresh-faced, frisky and coltish,
then vibrant like new green leaves
and brilliant virgin blooms--to tired,
wearily weathered as untreated
shingles near the shore pounded
by three category fours in a row.Too many commas in my opinion, and seeing as this is all one sentence the flow seems kind of important here but I felt myself kinda tumbling through these lines
 
Sometimes he seems cruel.
Teaching isn’t always kind;This is starting to feel a tad bit abstract
the learning is hard.  But in the end
knowledge, a friend.  How else Are these extra spaces intentional?
is one to learn to balance buckets
overflowing the brim without sloshing
or spilling; lifting makes you strong.
 
He instructs me to pluck those first white
hairs, wince at lines that aren’t even there
yet, then not to care--over stretchmarks,
droops and sags, or dye resistant grays,
to even be proud of my age.
 
Then before I am ready or just right,
maybe even way past my idea of when,
he will send me goodbye into the night,
saying, “it is time” and I will say,
“farewell father, father time.”         

I like this poem alot, thanks for sharing!
mike

Hi weeded,

Thank you for your remarks.  You actually answered one of my questions in the first stanza without knowing I had asked it (about reordering the lines).  I am going to consider your criticisms and suggestions for a revision.  As for the extra spaces...I don't know if something weird happened during the copy and paste.  I used two spaces after the period, which is correct in America.  Is that not acceptable in a poem though?  I do not know.  I actually never use a period in the middle of a line when writing poems.  I was trying something new for me.  Maybe the spaces seem extra wide because of the font???

Anyway thank you.