​                                             POETRY  -  
                                                     With a Theme of Time 

"always moving, never getting anywhere"     
                  Photo by Weebly                               

The Trouble with Time
by Charlene Anderson

Time is a treadmill
where I stand in place and trudge along,
always moving, never getting anywhere.
In front of me in this ‘exercise studio’ of life
is a blank wall. The next scrap
of my life will filter out of it at any time
without notice, so I must be on alert,
never knowing what will appear
or what that crumb of existence will be or do to me.

Meanwhile, my past is an amorphous cloud 
swirling away behind me, filled with a flotsam/jetsam 
of memory, dream and broken, scratchy voices.
Still, though my past seems to be there--
if in dramatically reduced form--
I’m barred from returning to and reexperiencing it, 
even fleetingly.

I’d love to return to the Purdue Sweet Shop 
in 1965. I’d sit in our favorite faded Naugahyde booth again
and laugh and talk with my friends.
We’d tear the world apart a second time 
and stitch it back together—this time maybe better than,
in our youthful naivete, we ever could before.

I’d like to stand in that exercise class in 1989 too,
clutching a pole, room shaking, plaster falling on my head, 
wondering if I was about to fall off this old treadmill for good--
that 15 seconds longer than some entire years.
Would I learn more about life and death 
the second time around? 

Obviously, Time has very different plans for me,
no going back anytime, anywhere, to any degree.
So I clutch these rails, breath wheezing in and out, 
eyes fixed on that wall, wondering what’s to come,
as my past continues to slip and clatter away.

That’s the trouble with Time.
It’s inflexible, unyielding and completely lacking 
in innovation or imagination.
If I could move, even briefly, back into the past 
and occasionally pinch up into the future too,
I’d surely have a different perspective, maybe even
become a trifle wiser. Who knows? Could be. 

So, Time, since you’re obviously in charge--
I sure don’t see anybody else loitering about who fits the bill— 
how about taking your job more seriously? 
I’m tired of having my past crumble and trail away behind me,
as I stare ahead at an empty, unrevealing--
and at any moment about to scare the dickens of out of me--
wall.

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​​Soon after she retired from UCSF, a friend told Charlene Anderson about OLLI at SF State and she began taking classes. In 2015, in one of those classes, Mike Lambert suggested starting a literary and photography magazine at OLLI. So, Mike, Charlene and a small group of OLLI members, founded Vistas & Byways. It has been publishing stories, poems and nonfiction pieces, as well as photography, ever since. Charlene is pleased to be part of V&B which provides OLLI members an opportunity to be published.

Other works in this issue:
Poetry
​All Aboard
Photo Essay
Mississippi-River Out of Time

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