Telescope - a graduation poem

Telescope - a graduation poem

  Office of the Dean July 7, 2017

By Nic Reiner '17 (M.F.A., poetry)

Time wishes she could fly
like the human says she can.
She wishes she could lift
her body through the sky
like a sparrowhawk.
Most of all, she wishes
she wasn’t invisible
like this.

In his room today
the human wishes
for more time. Some days,
he wishes for her to pass quick
& other days for her to slow.

Time has a blue telescope
she uses to look
into human hearts
to see how far & with whom
their lives will stretch.
In this human’s heart
she sees pain
like a goose egg
& triumph
like a ripe tomato.
She lifts her one eye
from the telescope,
emits her spirit like pollen
tries again to elongate
herself & fails.
Human, it hurts to stretch,
for both me & you.