The Fine Print

Poemata, XIV

WE ALL LIVE on borrowed time
Tho' some do not yet know it
We who signed upon the line
Read not what was below it;
Too small the text for us to read
We squint, we crane, but do we need
To see in word what must be so
 If now we are so known indeed;

If we could learn to count the things
As counting-down to lift-off
None sustain; and how it stings
As we begin to drift off
Into a reverie of sleep
And counting up, as counting sheep
But down they go, into the rift
 From dust to light--  to heat.

My voice is broken, cannot sing
Each year the more I'm squinting
I'm not the poet I might have been
Less finely is the printing
That shows me how and what the crime
That I have done, Yes, which is mine!
At last I've learned to take the hint:
 For we all live on borrowed time.