Come if You Like

By User:AnnaKucsma (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Montreal, Old Port, Autumn

You can come if you like, but it is not the best time:
the weather’s uncertain
the trees are still teetering on rust’s edge
we have cake, but it is not the right cake
and we haven’t been cleaning.
But come if you like.

You can come if you like, but it is not the best time:
work is beginning all round
there are things I have to get done
I can’t spare more than fourteen hours a day
and the best of the flowers are over.
Do come if you like.

You can come if you like, but it is not the best time:
I should train the birds to form hieroglyphs
proclaiming your name to the sky
and persuade the city to organise a special festival
and shed three stone and ten years.
Still, come if you like.

You can come if you like, but it is not the best time:
the best time is the enemy of the good time
come now, come in possible time,
come and share some time while we’re breathing,
let weather fall on us.
Come whenever you like.

10th September 2010