1.A Conversation with Death and Time
*Because I could not stop for death -
He kindly stopped for me, *Because I could not stop for Death(Emily Dickenson)
And in the rocking carriage looked,
At Life invisibly

And to my left, past bloody poppies,
*Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever* The Triumph of Time (Algernon Charles Swinburne)
*Like the ghost of a dear friend dead,* Time Long Past (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Side-by-side we sat,
Death and Time and I.
and so I heard their grievances,
of a job that never ends.

I listened quietly, as they argued,
in this fragment of eternity,
of troubles in their work

“*The problem of time.
Of there not being enough of it* Time Problem (Brenda Hillman)
It gives me so much work!”
Death snorted at Time.

And Time, aghast, points to me,
“‘Tis not my fault, but rather theirs!

Which gives us both such work.”

And Death conceded,
for nothing brought him work so quickly,
nor cut Time so deeply,
as *a murder most foul * Hamlet (I.v.27-28) (William Shakespeare)

Time grumbled to Death and I,
“It’s unfair for my subjects,
my sands slip away with your work”

Then turned to me,
complaint on its lips,
“Each poppy in this field is your fault,
eating all the sand in my glass”

And Death, agreeing,
“Even the Fates do not give me such work,
Only your ideals and madness”

So Time sat disgruntled,
With weary Death beside,
Cursing the words which cut both short,
*Dulce et Decorum est* Dulce et Decorum est, pro patria mori (Wilfred Owen)