A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

Time Travel
By James Keefe
September 26, 2007

Time travel should not be easy,
Especially to the past for then
Nothing could ever be finished.

You would leave your lover,
Then recant and return to
Just before you left and stay.

Or, you'd go back to that time
When you didn't know what to say
Until later, and make the perfect reply
To the one who hurt you.

You would later decide you
Didn't really mean that either
And go back again to say something else —
Something kind.

If it ever got to be later,
Since you'd go back again and again
Trying to say what you wished you'd
Said the first time.

Better to travel to the future,
Skip over the ugly now,
Avoid all the pain of leaving
The one you loved in the past.

If there is a past.

Einstein knew the future is better —
A few hours at light speed and you're centuries
Away from your troubles.

But if, as the physicists say,
Every electron's choice creates a new universe
To play its life across space and time,
It might be ok to have all the options.

And discover truly what life with the
Red-headed girl you touched
In the back seat of that car in 1961
Turned out to be like.

Or to take that job in Puerto Rico
Instead of the one in Illinois,
Watching the sands of your life
Run out
On the beach
Down the hill from San Juan.

About the author:
Just an old country boy - but with an English major!