Watching Time
** Watching Time **
From all analog to any
Digitally shown markings
Of humanity’s invented
Way to watch over Light
— passing or coming —
Time…
In less than a breath,
So, so many ways our anxious
Noting of hours may be halted:
By accidents or by
The Will of Heaven!
Remember ever seelng those once
“Must-be-shown” to the garden’s
visitors? — Those unique,
Stone, short, column-standing
Sundials, marking the hours
With shadow and sunbeams
Since 1500 B.C.E., which have
Long been overgrown — all
Caught up in ever-ongoing
Miles of shade-overwhelmed, leaf-
Overhanging trees, and, too,
From climate affected heat
And rain…The gray, raining
Clouds so thick and towering
On high with the rising
Moisture of all humanity’s
Tears.
Then there will always be
The remaining, need-to-know
Few, who for medical or
Technical or religious
Or any other practical or
Curious reson, will try to
Fix their Heaven-warned
Clocks, and to finally give up
…Calculating to guess-estimate
By motions of the sun, the
Moon or the constellions; by
The ebb and flow of tides
Until, finally, in the far
Places, when necessary, to
Pen lines on paper, or
Like (we may suppose) our
Earliest ancestors, resort to
Notching strokes on sticks: to
Keep track of all the transient
Things that can’t be fixed, or
Hidden…Finally, quitting numbers
To throw it all off to Magic
With all the other unexplained
Wonders there aren’t any ideas
For, and at last figure up all
Those anxious guesses about the
Hour of the End-of-Time by the
Repeticious and exhausting
Counting of fingers and toes.
———————————————————————————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 6/8-7/10/2023
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