The After A While

There's a beautiful river, the After A While,
With travelers drifting away;
It flows through the country of Putting Things Off,
Till it broadens out into the bay.

Far down at the mouth of this slow-winding stream
Is the city of Never, I hear,
And those who would drift on the eddying tide
Must tie at its tumbledown pier.

So if you wouldn't go to the city I've named,
Don't ask me the "why" or the "how";
Just portage today, to the stream o'er the hill,
That turbulent river, the "Now"!

— Stillman J. Elwell
From his book "Windows of Thought"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Brunswick Town, North Carolina

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