Pandora's Collective Poetry Contest (2018)
​1st Place Winner - Teen Category

TEMPUS FUGIT
​
Time flies
it spreads
changes, hurts, and heals the land
watch the detritus of centuries hide beneath its feet.
There, was a stream: an elderly, ambling country stream
and children fished for adventures in it
they sat on the unshakable sandstone bridge and dropped gossamer threads
into the silver water.
There, was a garden patch,
rustling with care and life and love
a bee at work in every flower,
a sweetness, a warmth in the green air.
There a girl stumbled and fell
and someone, kind stranger, carried her home
the torn, bloodied hem of her skirt
fluttering soundlessly in the wind of his walk.
Around us the stories are like hot breath on sharp frost days
             there and gone
                                         dissolve like salt in water, like one ripple on a still lake
ten thousand more ripples
gather in the mist

- Cara Gordon