Five Minutes

Theme: Time - we all need more, but supposing someone 'gave' you a moment? Pick a period of time: a moment, a quarter of an hour, a day, an hour, decade, eon, month, etc.. What would you/could you do with it? Or maybe when would you get it? Fun or get chore caught up? All sorts of possibilities!



Five Minutes

What can I do in five minutes?
That minute space of time?
Just three hundred seconds--
Well, I know I can make a rhyme.

I can write a poem, express my thoughts,
drives people crazy how fast I compose--
Sixty some lines in nothing flat:
Ask Ren or Mara for they both know!

I can make a cup of coffee and
have time to drink it down,
I can hop in my car
and drive it to town.

"Insert seventy-five cents for the next five minutes."
chimed a voice in superior, nasally tone.
What wouldn't one give to buy more time
as we once did on an old pay phone.

Yet, if I were given five minutes
with my folks who've passed away,
I think I might waste it
for I wouldn't know what to say.

I'd ask about heaven and
want to fill them in on my life,
but how to condense almost twenty years
of children and grands, of joy and strife?

I expect I'd spend it in a hug,
looking into my parents' eyes
and possibly not even say a word
just live in that moment, probably cry.

If that allotment of time
came as Death hovered near
I'd tell my husband I loved him;
he'd say I had nothing to fear.

I'd have time for a prayer
to keep us strong,
and one last verse
of his voice raised in song.

One long, last look,
a last embrace,
one to last me forever
as I caress his face.

In the last few milliseconds I'd think of things
I needed to tell him as last grains fall,
and there still wouldn't be near enough time--
too much left to say and couldn't say all.

Five minutes of perspective ...
Eons as baby labors borning
or when someone passes
and you are left behind in mourning.

The clock is ticking, mere seconds left
to write these lines in haste;
The time we have is a precious gift
and we have no time to waste!

(And the timer goes off as I type this...)