The Missing 24 Years

Where have the years gone? Have they tumbled into the cracks in the cuckoo clock, or leaked away through that fissure where the skies and earth meet clandestinely? Or have they died with the last echo in the vales? Did they fly south with the geese for the winter and never returned? Or have they taken off in a huff as I hadn’t paid much attention?

Time, could you not have been patient and lingered for me?

I still have Africa to wander through, to fly an aircraft, and bungee jump. I have to be on that trapeze and row that boat along the Amazon. I have to dive in the Great Barrier Reaf. I have to go to Timbuktoo and be back. I have to walk up the Pyramids of Egypt and float on the Dead Sea. I have to build a home, plant my patch of roses, see my elms grow, finish the classics, run a marathon, become wise, bathe in the Ganges, journey in a hot air balloon, elope to Pitcairn Islands, walk among the giants of Easter Island, understand Theory of Relativity, speak on the BBC World Service, eat fresh croissants in a café on the Rues of Paris, swim in the Nile, camp at the foothills of Himalayas, sleep in a hammock under my very own elm tree in my very own backyard, build a tree house, gain the trust of children, kiss. I still have to build my very own Brunel’s bridge. I still have to live. Oh, Life! Oh, Sun!