Reviewed on 12/13/2024
★★★★★
Instantly, I recognize this man. I’ve been waiting here for him.
In “The Time Traveler,” Leonard explores the dichotomy of love as loss and eternity. He sets up the contrast in the first line: “and it ends, of course … it’s not an if, but when.” This situates the speaker’s time-travelling in the inevitability of death, that human connections are temporary. This address of our limited time on earth contextualizes the speaker’s later pursuits. His relationships are grounded in the acknowledgement of losing the other person in the end. In this light, their love is brave and heroic.
The speaker “[bends] the days” and travels to “his boyhood home, ancient Rome … see art in every century.” These lively imageries paint their trip, as expansive as it is, as domestic and specific to them, perhaps suggesting home is wherever they are. At the same time, they “grow old in different times.” While previous scenes depict the lovers as intertwined, this narration pulls them apart as individuals. There is something both linear and eternal to their love. On one hand, they each learn from “former relationships.” On the other hand, they experience their personal pasts together. In love, each of their “history” becomes the “future.” When two mortal men come together because of love, they also build a world that lasts forever just for them. The closing line directly illuminates this nature: “I’ve been waiting here for him.” Despite how we all perish into dust one day, they need only to be here, right now, for each other.
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