Listen to audio
“ Life ”
– be but a minute –
The journey starts
Tho moves so fast,
Seems off the chart
As conjectural cast,
Life means impart
On a short tenure,
Found is my part
In fates September,
As I a minute ark,
Will soon surrender
Seen ephemeral part,
May hold remember
A diminutive minute,
Mans unwitting enter
That is to be ones life…
As life be but a minute
Do pardon my rancour,
If you crowd my space
I am short of candour,
As be no time to waste
Nor room for squander,
So I’ve cause to make haste…
In the wake of all to die
As will prized September,
When reality need not hide
Find ye peace in fall’s slumber,
And the minute to live described
Thus as said of life, be but a minute!
© Jean-Jacques Fournier
Imagery, symbolic of depicting life…
Music, Miles Davis Ascenseur pour l’échafaud…
Wrote for audio, in Sweetsburg August 14, 2020…
Poetry on a Canapé 
Powerfully and poignantly said. A precious minute gone all too fast. Thank you.
It seems that so little time ago, life was but a month or so and shortly thereafter, it became a week. Somehow quite recently it actually did start to feel like life was but a minute. But being the hard headed stubborn creature I’ve always been, I am pushing ever so hard to slow thing down so as not to reach, life as becoming but a second! Kind of feel I’d be constantly dizzier that I possibly am now. Pardon the nonsense, my long time dear friend, and stay well.
“If you crowd my space
I am short of candour,
As be no time to waste
Nor room for squander,
So I’ve cause to make haste…”
Those words held so much wisdom and power. Life has limits and there is no movement between past and future unless we use present time. So we MUST not squander present time – we simply don’t have the “time” to devote to anything but what lifts the spirit. And my spirit is always lifted when I stop by….
Well said, Rebecca.
Thanks Rebecca for doing so and ever so supportingly. You and a few others, who know who they are, and like you always there with intelligent and inspiring comments, all of which gives me encouragement to keep writing, thus so for you as well as for my sanity and the nurturing of that short bit of meagre life we are allocated. Stay close, dear friend…!
This poem goes right to the heart of my being as I hear time’s winged chariot bearig down upon me. The video was excellent; the music was a perfect counterpoint to the poem. (I should have known it was MIles Davis!)
That music was done during Miles’ stay in France, most of it with Juliette Gréco, the while composing the music for that famous French movie, Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, with Jeanne Moreau starring. Miles remains number one for me.
As to the poem and the support used to present it…I’m indeed most pleased that you so enjoyed the whole ensemble of this posting, and your choice of acknowledgement. Thank you Liz, and as I suggested to Rebecca, all of your confirming interests to my work truly adds to the raison d’être of what I scribble.