Poetry

What is Now?

Madeline Male

You are reading this poem now.

I wrote it “now,”
but by the time you’re reading it,

I will have written the poem in the past.

Oh, the functions of time!

Past, now, soon . . .

Time commands every word.

What is now?

It is gone, but will come again,

right now.

Stone Soup · Children’s Art Foundation · Since 1973