We Call it the Sands of Time (April 2025)

Poetry Jun 30, 2025

by Walden Hoddie

Because at each hour, as you
Walk among the willow trees
With white pills in your ears
Wondering how to gloss over
This uncomfortable moment,
With the sun in your eyes
And the riverflies in your mouth,
Maybe the music will
Drown it out
In the sands of time,
But generally speaking
It doesn’t

Because the sun will go home
Since mother said to return
Before the streetlights turned on,
And your blue rectangle has gone
To the next song, Big Yellow Taxi
As the grass turned to pavement
Under your rubber feet (clop, clop),

Now atop this picnic table,
The rain and sleet gone,
Reveals a sketch I etched
Two years ago—it was of an eye,
So I cursed the sands of time
To die, to die
But it didn’t

And even stranger:
I seem
to be
sinking