TOMORROW

Tomorrow is to me both friend and foe.
Sometimes I welcome her and sometimes not.
She waits for me no matter where I go,
But many times her coming is forgot.
Her face I never see but as a mask,
Masking a form of dark transparency.
She never speaks, not even when I ask,
Just mutely looms casting uncertainty.
Her elder sister, deceased Yesterday,
Has taught me not to trust the frozen smile
She wears upon her golden veiling clay,
For promised joy she oft turns to sad trial.
Nor her ceramic sorrow can I trust,
Forewarning me of misery to come,
For I believed and she deceived in jest,
Raising time's curtain not on rain but sun.
Tomorrow holds all my dreams in her hands,
All my plans and every heart's desire.
Sometimes in kindness all my hopes she grants,
Other times all my hopes with her expire.
When her dark shade overshadows Today,
And I am haunted by her haunting ghost,
I lay my thoughts with buried Yesterday
And forget, with remembering, she is close.
Sometimes to flee her I have longed for Death
To suffocate me with his bony claw,
For if he drew from me my final breath,
Tomorrow could torment my soul no more.
Yet she is History in the making,
Without her setting Future cannot dawn.
We go to sleep to greet her on waking,
But find she's Present's shadow every morn.
If I could see Tomorrow in Today,
And in that will-be visage see all's well,
Then heavenly would be dead Yesterday,
Not fearing then Tomorrow's coming hell.
But Father Time must all time's secrets keep,
For like a river time on course must flow,
And time in time all mortals laugh and weep:
Tomorrow is to me both friend and foe.

© Heather Sharnette