Early Lateness

Early Lateness

As my hemisphere grows darker

The men who wind up the world

Choose to make it darker still

Just days before my birthday

As I’m blowing out the candles

My wish is for more daylight

Perhaps I should just let them burn

They’ve the luminous intensity of Sirius

When you’re sixty-eight like me

In exchange for early late nights

They gave us sixty extra minutes

To do with as we please

I spent mine adjusting clocks

I could have boiled twenty eggs

It actually took me sixty-four

Which made the darker nights

Even harder to swallow

Than twenty hard-boiled eggs

Image:

A winter sunset in Veliko Tarnovo. My own photograph.