What do the decades have to say?
Do they think one order of magnitude
closer to geology? Do their topographies
blend and bend with climate
rather than weather? Whether or not
this time scale can eat my scales raw,
ten years has me in its jaws.
Ten years claws my eyes and says,
you could have tried this and that and those.
Ten years makes a claim on my soul,
calling it a soul, because souls cannot enter existence
in less than a ten year span.
The cosmos could not cosmos less
about ten years. But my cosmic reality
light years in ten year chunks.
Doctorate degrees, interstate highways,
and even, in more ambitious times,
trains and buildings and Institutions
can be crafted and honed and finished
by ten years of work. Ten years!
Where was I ten years back? Where
were you? Where will we be ten years
from today? Twenty thirty five. Twenty
fifteen. Almost a whole generation,
in two ten year chunks. Boredom,
the interesting, belief; all are made and
broken by decades and the way
a person enacts and endures. But do not forget
the environment, the context, the world,
the bigger chunks of the universe
(don't call it a cosmos)
may also enact and endure
as ten years pass.
Roman Ryan 