Tempus Edax Rerum Paradox
March 2019

A poem inspired by the sundial in Peoples' Park, Halifax, inscribed "Tempus Edax Rerum" (Time the Devourer of Everything).

Read at the Puzzle Poets 13 May 2019

We don't have time - there is the paradox,
For time is everywhere, like hydrogen.
Time fills the universe.... but we've run out;
Run out of time, run out of scope and all
The wherewithall, the strength, the steel, the grit
That once we thought would help us stop the tide,
And stop the clock, and stop the rot... but now?
"Now" - a word that's spawned by time and weaned
By time, but signifies a lack of it,
For in each single moment there's no time.

Tempus fugit, tempus edax rerum,
Time flies, time conquers all, devours itself.
Old father time, the sands of time, lost time,
"Same time tomorrow?", but it's not the same;
It's another time, a different time, a time
That coexists and yet does not exist,
Paradox on paradox, on time.

Allotted time, time's up, then time of death.
But we don't die, we only think we die,
And in some other heart, some other soul,
We will live on... there is the paradox.