The Eternal Passing Of Time

The portrait shows this – his eyes fixed elsewhere,

Mehmet the Conqueror holds a rose

To the Turkic scimitar of his nose.

The engrossing necessities of money and war,

The wise politician’s precautionary

Fratricides, the apt play of power –

All proper activities in his sphere,

And he excelled at them all. So why the flower?

A nod, perhaps, to something less worldly;

Not beauty, I think, whatever that is,

Not love, not ‘nature’,

Not Allah, by that or any other name –

Just a moment’s immersion in the texture

Of existence, the eternal passing of time.

All That Man Is

“How little we understand about life as it is actually happening. The moments fly past, like trackside pylons seen from a train window.

The present, perpetually slipping away.”