There's no such thing as "then"

There’s no such thing as then.  Everything’s now.
  Regrets?  Plans?  Failures?  Hopes?  Scars?  All straw men.
No maybe, no perhaps, no was, no how--
  Just one brief answer to the question, “When?”
Yesterday is a ghost that lives to haunt us;
  Before and Once are the dead hands of Time
That hold us back from where our best dreams want us
  To stand--to be--on this rough peak we climb.
Now we lose purchase, now the heights we gain.
  Now we’re our mother’s children, now the dirt’s.
Now we feel pleasure, now the world is pain.
  Life is so present simple that it hurts:
      And now the moon and stars, and now the sun;
      And now this line is born; and now it’s done.

Copyright 2012 Matthew J Wells