The Ship Passes

The Ship Passes

by Timothy Reed 

Should I charter a ship

of ample speed and strength

to match pace with dawn or dusk

or even pry back the darkness

'til gilded sun yawns in the West

Would time stop, every watch now dead? 

Nay, for the ground would still be

speeding by, underfoot, underheart 

perhaps the past is not so static a thing,

for time draws her breath

from the Passed

in the passing. 

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How is time defined? Perhaps it’s not that we’re passing through time, but maybe time is passing through us. Time draws its life from us, and from that which passes away - passes behind. History is a collection of endless memories and former things - those memories and former things allow time to exist.


That motion of constant passing is the past - the passed. That ties into the idea of “freezing time” by fast enough motion. It could never happen, because to do it, you would be passing life, memories, lives, at an even faster rate... We misunderstand how time and life work at a fundamental level.