an abrupt fall of darkness

Here's another in the#notblippedbefore  series ... this one taken from the 2009 collection of Jane Pearn's poems:


When it comes,

it will be no good saying
I need more time.
Because when it comes, whenever it comes,
you will not have finished everything
you were going to do.

It may be shockingly sudden - an abrupt
fall of darkness - snatching you
on your way from or to, catching you
deciding, or wondering whether.

But even if you expect it,
if you feel your shadow lengthening,
you will never be quite ready.
You will be perhaps mid-thought, or drifting
on a sleepy flow of neurons
between dreams, halfway through a sigh.

There will always have been something
left undone, some small future.

---

Jane Pearn

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