Oh, time! Be slow!

It was a dawn ago

I was a child

dreaming of being grown;

a noon ago

I was with children of my own;

and now

it’s afternoon

—and late—

and they are grown

and gone.

Time, wait!

 

Taken by permission and adapted from “Ruth Bell Graham’s Selected Poems,” by Ruth Bell Graham. ©1977, 1992, 1997. The Ruth Bell Graham Literary Trust.