The “Time” Machine (or, Words can be Misleading)

They pronounced the words

and pointed at the face

the face with the hands.

They announced the words

as terms and math and concepts.

Other things they had named and gestured:

Squirrel

Tree

Water

Me

But these hands, this face

they designated “time.”

So that it might be lost

or found

gained or squandered

like a toy, a friend

or the contents of a wallet.

But it is not like that.

Time cannot be “there.”

Is not a nearness or distance

It does not take up space

It is no thing

And so the words were all wrong

full of pasts, presents, futures

rather than nows or occurings

manifestings or become.

I misunderstood

as do we all, it seems

at least us who greet

the great face of numbers

with plans and regrets

and false concepts called speed

I am tired of our language

listening now to Hopi & Shawnee

to Far East and Far South

signs accounting for Einstein

and Heisenberg

not abstracted like equations

or metaphysical symbol

but present in all its various forms

and modes of meaning(s)

faceless globes without hands

and pointing in every direction

N Filbert 2012