Do we wear watches
or surround ourselves with clocks
to rein in our unruly
perception of time passing
“Oh heavens! Just look at the time!”
we say to an old friend
with whom we have been
immersed for fifty years in fifty minutes.
Even battery operated quartz clocks
can produce a metronomic beat
if we listen hard enough
but a pendulum grand father
case clock cannot be beaten –
ticking and tocking
the heartbeat of a house.
On TV The Repair Shop
at its allotted hour
restores treasured items
and the clock maker
is much in demand for –
mantel clocks with chiming mechanisms
corner the market for memories
of loved ones lost since childhood
when they made the soundtrack
of visits to grandparents
uncles and aunts.
Offices with Bauhaus severe wall clocks
Place them where drones can regulate their work
but if the heart isn’t in it
then they offer clock-watchers little solace
because a watched clock stretches time
with the incremental twitch of its hands
Once, clocks marked retirement
condemning the wearer
to pointless hours
with no consolation for being
wrapped in a gold case –
markers of growing up –
making the grade –
tokens of affection…
The utility of timepieces
nearly died with the ubiquity
of mobile phones with which
even children have
a constant time coach
an alarm clock, an egg timer
and a sports stopwatch
tickless and tockless in their pocket
time always on top –
at least they don’t show
the sands of time running out
though doubtless
there is an app for that.
There is now no excuse
not to know the time
broadcast by the network
linked to an atomic clock somewhere
but still a clock cannot control
the flexibility of time in mind
our stretching it out
in the instant of a crash
our inability to slow it
in the minutes before parting
the long minutes as medics
attempt resuscitation
before a doctor finally calls time.
Time is not always our friend
yet we carry a constant measure of it
in our pockets or strapped to our wrists
for fear of missing out…
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
Posted for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night where you can post one poem of your choice – Björn Rudberg (brudberg) is managing the pub for this after returning from his epic hike from the northernmost tip of Sweden to the end of the mountains in the south (1346 km in 53 days)!
This is another poem which is the fruit of my writing group where we were writing “in the shadow of” The Watch by Danusha Laméris
…
This is a wonderful expose of our hate-love relationship with both time and timepieces… I have understood that young people cannot even read the time from a clock with hands.
Yes I think i read that too. Of course, there are also plenty of people who continue to wear watches as a fashion item and I could have included that but it felt like the piece was long enough already…
Excellent poem!
Thanks, Sue! I will go back and put the poem which we were writing “in the shadow of”, in my writing group…
Time. No time. Time and again. On time. Crickey. The illusion we live.
Indeed, Petru – will you be at the live meeting tomorrow?
Almost a history of time pieces, Andrew, and an ode to time. I love these lines:
‘mobile phones with which
even children have
a constant time coach
an alarm clock, an egg timer
and a sports stopwatch
tickless and tockless in their pocket’.
Thanks, Kim, struggling to decide whether to read this one or the sea poem tomorrow…
This is gorgeously encapsulated, Andrew! 💖 I especially resonate with this part;
“The utility of timepieces
nearly died with the ubiquity
of mobile phones with which
even children have
a constant time coach
an alarm clock, an egg timer
and a sports stopwatch.”
Thanks, Sanaa – you and Kim both like those lines…
The tick tock of a clock reminds me of a heartbeat, a reminder I’m still alive and conscious of time’s passing. Time is a fascinating topic. I see it as relative and linear most of the time, but in the back of my mind believe it jumps around on an ongoing basis. One day we’ll crack the code, but I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not. Again, it’s relative.
Thanks for evoking thoughts about it with your poem.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Lisa, that is what I was aiming to get at…
Hi Andrew, time is an elusive and ethereal topic and you have caught that beautifully in this poem. We link much in life to clocks and time right up to when our clock strikes.
When our clock strikes – and the doctor calls time… The metaphorical possibilities are endless – thanks for visiting , Robbie and nice to hear you read yesterday!
Your poem captures the essence of us trying to measure and master time, in a way that was not necessary in a preindustrial world. We’ve established systems to measure time and keep track of days, but then that controls us, too.
I have a good internal clock, but my husband does not. 🙂
Time is a subject that fascinates me so much.
“but still a clock cannot control
the flexibility of time in mind”
I think of how we can live a lifetime in a dream of a few seconds.
Exactly, Merril, glad you enjoyed it, it was good to see you read yesterday…
A great poem, Andrew. Turning 83 next week, not paying too much attention to the time now. Simply letting it happen. I remember ‘the soundtrack of visits’ to my mother and step-father’s cottage on the Niangua River deep in the heart of the Missouri Ozarks … the
Coo-Cooing of that ‘damned” bird all the night long. It’s been decades, I can still hear it in my (beautiful) memories of them.
Thanks, Helen – all the senses bring back memories and for sound, the obvious choices are songs, but ambient sounds like clocks ticking and that ‘damned’ bird are just as powerful…
I must admit, the title brought up the Paul Simon song, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover ~
I wasn’t thinking of that but now that you mention it…
The tyranny of chronos stands out in this – but as self-made, it doesn’t control us we simply take it on – that’s what stands out for me in this.
Thanks, Paul, yes, the paradox of winning that battle by letting go…