Look at the Time

There is a time and a season for everything. It seems a logical and simple concept that everyone should understand. Alas in our modern society this understanding has been lost. We are all about instant coffee, instant oatmeal, instant information (just Google it), and instant gratification. We have forgotten that some things take time. No one has had to wait for a chick to hatch from the egg. Most of the farm kids I knew growing up had at one time or another tried to “hurry” the hatching of a chicken’s egg only to discover that even one day early resulted in death for the chick! They knew personally that everything must happen in season. They had to develop patience. They learned that there is an order to the cosmos.

So here I sit conflicted. Young people try to force nature like forcing a bulb to bloom in February. It is a beautiful flower but the flower dies and the bulb is spent – never to bloom again. There are things that should bring joy if they happened in the right season and at the right time. Instead I see a rushing and a lack of patience and I cringe. How will this out of season event unfold? Will there be happiness or will everything collapse amid tears and sorrows? What I do know is that time will reveal the truth. As all parties involved sort through the ramifications of the choices made, I will be standing to the side and waiting patiently for my right season.

Come
Quickly
Patience is
A mortal foe
To needed instant gratification

Revel in leisure anticipation
Of journey’s end
Slow the pace
Sunset
Glow

Run
Eager
For the start
You jump the gun
Disqualify your participation

This is a little poem, a tetractys, based on a geometrical figure. The tetractys (Greek: τετρακτύς), or tetrad is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row, which is the geometrical representation of the fourth triangular number. The poetry form consists of any number of 5 line stanzas having a syllabic count of 1/2/3/4/10. Each subsequent stanza is inverted from the previous one. Thus the second stanza would have lines with syllable counts of 10/4/3/2/1.