As journey’s impart
Finds compose,
A life held chart
Of fading echoes,
Images seek focus
On a wistful past,
As recall delves
In dormant baggage,
Where marks a start
Of minute’s living,
Which is to be our life…
As life be but a minute
I’ve no time left to waste,
So overlook my rancour
If you crowd my space,
Or find ye be anchor
In my short-lived race,
Tho I sound rather terse
I’m not without candour,
So empathize my strife
For with so little time,
I’ve reason to make haste…
I might have shown fear
Or shed a meagre tear,
To decelerate the process
That fixed fall’s arrival,
In the wake of all that dies
As will a prized September,
Thus with all it finds allied
Seek peace with December,
For soon you’re gone to rest
To lie neath earthen blanket,
Should minute’s life end next!
© Jean-Jacques Fournier
Poetry on a canapé 
A life be but a minute, no time to waste. So true. So important. So poignant. Great poem my friend, JJ.
Thank you Paulette…Of time or what of it that is left, I have become much more aware of all aspects of it, as in time now at high speed, that is to say with hours transforming to seconds, days to minutes, weeks to hours, and months to years. When my wonderful mother was still alive in her early eighties, and I complained that time was moving too fast, she would chuckle and tell me that I hadn’t seen the half of it yet. I can comfortably say that ‘mañana’ has for some time lost its place in my vocabulary.
Jean-Jacques
>
Yes, at this age, it is how we live. And experience the precious moments. Happy Sunday to you and yours.
A brilliant way to capture the essence of humanity’s narrative. “As life be but a minute I’ve no time left to waste, So overlook my rancour If you crowd my space.” I love how you positioned “minute” to “waste” to “rancour” to “crowd.” We crowd our lives with “urgent” that wastes our precious minutes, which lead to discontent/rancour. It seems that the closer we get to the end of the runway, we pick up speed. Today is to be lived. Tomorrow is for tomorrow.
Thank you, Rebecca… Isn’t it funny how long it takes, us as youths and into later adulthood and onward, to realize how much we downplay that proverbial “minute”… like the most common of all, ‘be there in a minute’ or I’ll just be a minute, etc. All these minutes committed that are seldom if ever rendered within their commitment. But I digress, though the intent of my poem, was to emphasize how short be a lifetime, and how quickly it passes, was in essence simply to remind, and thus give value to each precious minute, as though they be a lifetime, hence so as not to waste. For in the overall scheme of things, what is said to be life or lifetime, by comparison to the age of our planetary system, we are here in this world for but a minute.
Jean-Jacques
>
So very well said, Jean-Jacques. We seem to have an idea that a life-time lasts forever. We are in this world but for a minute.