Pre-Valedictory

I HEAR people say, “Well, when my time comes . . .”
But as for me, there will be no such time.
My time, on the contrary and thank God,
Will have gone — oh yes, every bit of it,
Every little segment with its infinity of terrible moments,
Every long year that could muster so few minutes after all.
Unlike all my previous points in time,
This one will have no successor,
No future rising, rising, always pressing for more.
Time is a commodity that pays off poorly.
I shall close it out; some younger person may handle it
Until he too learns better.
I shall be done with Time.

Pray do not then leap to the conclusion
That I have resigned my existence.
I propose to check in, not out.
And just because one is freed from Time
He does not therefore cease.
Freedom from Time is Eternity,
And Eternity is not endless time, not at all.

Time is a thoroughly irritating thing.
You don’t get anywhere until you are shed of it.
One gets fed up with Time, in time.
It keeps your nose on the grindstone.
It holds you in the narrowest of all possible ruts,
That which lies between past and future.
And even the confining present it does not let you fairly savor.
It says, the Red Queen notwithstanding,
“Jam, if any, today,
But never jam yesterday, never tomorrow;
Remembered jam — oh, well;
Anticipated jam — maybe;
Honest-to-God jam — never except today.”
Even so, you must renounce part of it
To buy tomorrow’s bread.

A starveling thing indeed is this Today, this Now,
So thin it cannot keep the past and future from showing through,
So furtive it cannot look you in the eye,
Always taking it on the lam, always changing into the past,
Forever hanging around and butting into your privacy
With perfect assurance, impudent insistence;
Never quite bringing things off,
Never quite sure what the topic of conversation is.
Time announces, with the innocent moronic phiz of a radio dial:
“It is now exactly six seconds before ten o’clock.”
And it isn’t true; it’s never perfectly true.
Time is forever just missing an appointment with himself.
Time is rather silly.
Thank God, we can stand him up at last.

And please do not waste thought, either, on where I have gone.
Remember it is written, “Say not, Lo here, or Lo there.”
I shall be in such wise that “Where” cannot even put the question,
Nor “There” give an answer.
You must believe this: I never was any where.
My body? Oh, I didn’t know we were talking about that.
Why, yes, my body has always been here and there,
In a manner of speaking,
And perhaps I negligently conveyed the impression that I was, too.
My mistake and your error.
I was never any where; I simply was, simply shall be.
Don’t look at me that way; I’m quite serious,
Though I know very well you are thinking me dogmatic.
But observe that I am not presuming to speak for you;
I am only telling you my experience.
Look to yourself, but have no anxiety about my personality, my Self.
I am agile, like Socrates: they must first lay hold of me.
But also I am no longer a youth; I’ve been around a bit.
For decades I have maintained a selfhood against odds.
How my enemies tried to do me in!
But, by the Eternal, I am not expendable.

No, do not speculate on where I have gone.
The guides on this journey do not speak our language.
I have long contemplated reduction to my essential being.
Now regard me as having slipped into the finer interstices of the universe of Spirit.
Take heed lo St. Paul, and do not ask
“ With what manner of body . . . ?”
Why, I wouldn’t be caught dead with a body.

Should you care to note my withdrawal
In the manner that best links spirit and matter,
Play the Emperor Concerto, second movement, and disperse
But cheerfully.