Poem: $2.50 for time

In a dark corner of an op shop, thyme sits patiently on a shelf.   

I wonder who had so much of it that they could afford to give some of it away? Donating precious time as if it were nothing more than a pair of old boots.  

And what a price -- $2.50 for thyme. 

I tell myself it wants me to take it home. A greedy lie fed by my starved desire for control.  

I stare at the thyme as it falls away from me.  

All I need is at my fingertips, in a little pot on the op shop shelf. How dare someone leave time to rot?  

I need it.  

I long to be able to point the needle of the hour in the direction I desire. To wrench it free from its circle  

Its sharp edge does not obey futile human hands, but still I long to greedily sew together the canvas of time with threads lost years ago  

With small hands that were mine long ago, and wrinkled hands yet to be mine, we reach for thyme, desperate not to let it get away this time  

My pockets beg me to fumble for change, only $2 and then some for control of my eternity  

And yet I watch seconds, days, years fall away from me, as I stand stuck searching in the corner of an op shop. Dust and old memories float past me, laying to rest on the chipped paint that marks the creaky floorboard, silence and a greying shopkeeper my only company as I stand, 

Waiting.  

I can’t. 

I wrench my hands away with a gasp, waiting for the world to slow, to run, for the needle of time to spiral out of control- 

But all is still. 

Until a steady thrumming fills the space, the sound of my heartbeat, but instead- 

The careful ticking of the clock.  

It sounds slower than I remember, like soft footsteps that walk alongside me in quiet conversation  

I listen and I outstretch my hand   

And hold onto time as it continues to pass around me  

And later I will kneel unto the earth and plant it anew, scraping dirt over its roots as I did with what once was,  

And wait patiently for it to grow.