If Not

What is time if not a void to fill?

Asks a poet marooned

In an anthology

Of best Canadian

Poetry recently.

Interesting question,

Starting from the given—

Time, for starters, as not

A void available

To fill, void for filling.

The more usual trope

Is that time’s a substance,

A measure or resource,

A one-way bank account

That can be drawn down but

Never be replenished.

Of course, it’s not a void

Here either. Let’s not take

It rhetorically—

So, what is time, if not

A void for you to fill?

A lonely word, a slough

Poets wander into

Who confuse abstraction

With existential depth,

A cultural construct,

A system of measures,

A rhythmic kind of change,

Something to talk about

In an award-winning

Contemporary poem.