When I was very young
time meant having fun.
The road ahead of me . . .
well I couldn’t see the end
much less fathom the turns,
detours, or optional routes
in the long journey to come.

A septuagenarian now,
closer to eighty than seventy,
my memories are glued in scrapbooks.
From early marriage days
to birthdays and holidays,
newspaper clippings,
and recital programs.

Wedding albums,
birth announcements.
Photo albums filled with
tent-camping vacations,
early grandparenting days,
family reunions,
scenery shots from cruising days.

There is no doubt about it, time is a glutton.
It eats up seconds, months,
and precious years. But if we could stop it,
collect special events,
and put them in a bottle,
the question is,
at what point would we do that?

What would be the ripple effect?
Which moments might be lost,
what aspects of human development
might be missed in that stutter moment
between stopping the clock and starting it again?
Can we really judge what is significant enough
to stop everyone’s else’s world to save our own?

And just as important to consider,
how many bottles would we need?

Written for NaPoWriMo day 17 where the prompt today is to choose a song, and write a poem whose title is the name of the song. Time in a Bottle was made popular by Jim Croce.