Verbs slip from past to present to future <br />without care or pause. <br /> <br />As schoolkids, we learn their difference. <br />We plot diagrams with chalk. <br />We conjugate and categorize and learn <br />which is right, <br />which wrong, <br />where, <br />and why. <br /> <br />As writers, poets, teachers, we <br />savor them like candy, <br />rolling them around our tongue, <br />our hearts, <br />our minds, <br />these carriers of our <br />hopes, our memories, and <br />our tiny, ineffectual snapshots of now. <br /> <br />None of that, however, helps <br />me discern this: <br /> <br />It was an ordinary day. <br />15 minutes ago, the phone rang. <br />(past, irregular) . <br />“We’ll let know you the arrangements”. <br />(future, contraction) . <br />A half hour ago, the change <br />(necessary by nature) : <br />A 90-year woman, slipping away <br />(participle) . <br /> <br />She refused all food except one <br />serving of Jello <br />(hardly a appetizing choice for a last meal) . <br />They gave her morphine, to make her “comfortable.” <br />Dying a slow death comfortable— <br />of all the oxymorons, <br />of all the irony. <br />Over Christmas, she grabbed my hand; <br />hers was sickeningly soft, but her grip <br />desperate and, for a few seconds, strong. <br /> <br />A rag doll limp with defeat <br />(present, but not for long) , <br />passes. <br />She is, now she was. <br /> <br />On the page, it’s a simple transition. <br />Grammar guides our script <br />in this cyclical play. <br />Verbs come easy. <br />This is, of course, ordinary. <br />158,857 people die each day. <br />They are, and then they were. <br /> <br />But, I confess, <br />my heart is still lost, <br />my brain is still stuck <br />on <br />tense.<br /><br />Catherine Elaine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/semantics/
