How much time do you have?

                  A lot? A little? None? Enough?

                  Are you always running out of it?

                  Sweating to fill it?

                  Does it sometimes hang heavy?

                  Or vanish without a trace?

                  As a child, my supply was limitless, no need to tally or fret. Anything might happen in that luxurious amplitude. 

                  Age 74 my days are numbered. Horribly. Having expected ease at the last, I wake each dawn panicking I’m late. (The late Carll Tucker!) 

                  How do we measure time? Not by the clock. The clock, we say, keeps time, but that’s false. What timewaster more profligate than the clock! It spends like an improvident heir: tick, tick, tick and in no time there’s no time left.

                  We measure time, as we do most things, by scarcity. If we have enough, no worries; too much, what a drag; too little, yikes! Short of time, we rush, which is disagreeable and scary. Hurry harries: one makes mistakes.

                  By what scale do we measure scarcity? Love. Love is our soul’s accountant. Love never has enough time. The fiercer the love the faster you must live for every moment counts. I do not have time to die, I’ve got too much to do, too many loved ones to care for and about, too many songs to sing! But we’ve all got to go some time, I’m assured. Do we? Has Shakespeare gone – or Thoreau – Emily Dickinson – Bach? Aren’t they still here – singing – alive?

                  But this fixation, Carll, is lunacy, get a grip!

                  It sometimes feels insane. I grow impossibly impatient – with prolixity, garrulity, blather, lies especially. Don’t waste my time! Bullshitters disrespect their victims. Slack art riles me too, which is unjust. Maybe this was the best these makers could make! Maybe, but off with their heads even so, I’ve no time for piffle!

                  About windy prose I’m most wroth. My own especially. If I use six words where two would do, I’ve insulted you, as if I’d spit in your eye. Your time is precious – the nerve of me to squander even a moment. 

                  Why am I so greedy for time? Can’t I be reasonable?

                  No. Because love isn’t. Love’s unreasonable, impractical, inconvenient. It diverts us from prudent activity. It’s got me penning these paragraphs instead of renewing my driver’s license, which expired three weeks ago. Sorry, officer, I had to write a missive. You what?

                  Avarice rates love reckless luxury. Time out for flowers? – what a waste! (unless your business is flowers). Love views avarice with equal scorn. A life spent chasing pelf? – what a waste! (The Devil’s as greedy as a crypto-crook.)

                  I live for love. Can’t help myself. The things of this world, even pretty things, I deprecate as stuff. One bibelot more or less – who cares! But a loving exchange clinks in my treasure chest. I love to love and to be loved (though about the latter, I’m never convinced).

                  Art is love: whatever the mode, a gift of self. Religion is love (“God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son”). Tenderness, grace, kindness are love. These fulfill the time, not just fill it. What is not love is love’s competitor. I rue every minute not devoted to love, jawing with so-called “help desks” especially, but if you don’t fix things you end up in a fix (Sorry, officer, etc.).

                  That you give me your time startles my mind and melts my heart. Ten minutes a day amounts to sixty hours a year – that’s almost three days! In return for your munificence, I give you my all but it can never be enough.