“I am in your past and my present”. So wrote an 11 year-old grandson in his entry to the local Rotary Club’s 500-word story competition in 2020. It made me think . . .
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/directional-sign-with-past-future-present-words-184383967-5c7733b4c9e77c000136a698.jpg)
By the time you read my poem, I’ll be firmly in your PAST
But also in my PRESENT. For ‘time’ can never last:
It’s an infinite procession of infinitely small
Moments of existence – so it’s never ‘NOW’ at all.
My PRESENT is a transient NOW: it’s gone before I know it –
It’s landed in a memory stack, with other NOWs below it.
There’s no time like the present (quite literally*), and so
We’re living in the PAST**, for it is all that we can know.
The PAST is just a massive pile of NOWs that passed us by;
But they can be recalled at will from memory, if we try.
(The trouble is, our recalls may be partial and selective,
And memories can get jumbled up and often be defective . . . )
*See No time like the PRESENT and Living in the past.
**Or maybe not . . . see What time is it?.