It takes more than 15 minutes to count to one thousand..........
Now imagine, if you will,
Each and every single, solitary one
Of those small, split-second slivers of time
Lasting 24 hours, end-to-end, in a line:
A thousand days worth of ceaseless working,
A thousand nights of worthless wondering.
That’s how long it’s been, it’s been.
That’s how long a thousand days seem.
Remember, remember when the war with Iraq
Was going to be one, decisive attack,
With the lads all home safe for Christmas victorious;
When some believed in a Blair still glorious,
And Brown was a colour - not a successor colourless?
One hundred or more soldier-lifetimes ago,
One can hardly believe that it was ever so.
That’s how long it’s been, it’s been.
That’s what a thousand days really mean.
For one thousand and one nights Sheherezhade spun
The tales with which her freedom was won.
For one thousand days Queen Anne Boelyn sought
To keep her head, but all came to naught.
One thousand days. One thousand nights
Surely time enough to set to rights.
One thousand days since you’ve shown your face:
Happy Birthday number 19, Grace.
Tony Jolley
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/angst-of-a-thousand-days/