Against time

Too soon night’s watching lights dissolve and fade;
make way for fractured skies, which draw each tree
from lightening hills, like tunes from darker sounds.

Too soon the starlings rise; too soon the wind;
too soon the traffic’s beat, impatient feet
on crowded streets; heads sway like wheat, too soon.

Too soon shop windows fill with plastic life;
too soon bored workers close their minds to dreams;
too soon a jilted lover locks her heart.

Then streetlights fight again with rising stars
which grow like crowds, arrived too soon to watch
as time consumes our hopes – too soon, too soon.