Grandfather Clock
A hand of gold,
Sturdy and old,
Giving up key to be turned by one who needs
Time set aside to complete all and more deeds.
There is no complaint, scoff or sigh from the one who creaks,
Working throughout the day and the night, to a metronome
Ticking away in its stoic-shelled soul, beating like the drum
Of war that turns each step-to into a sweating, aching pace,
Like an old blacksmith, forever tooling in an oven for others.
You may think it waits for your time of need, but it does not.
In forethought, it read tomorrow’s newspaper, and prepared
For you, that when you come to need, it was already ticking,
Primed with key to a generous extent more than you’d need.
It fixes and restores your broken, and won’t stop at plasters,
Its hands seal every crack, as birds sing to its rhythmic ticks.
Worker of merit earned from service under light of its maker
The great craftsman, surely pleased to have gifted the world
This wooden frame, branded well with his name, and sound,
Made to give and to inspire giving. This one completed both.
Echoes of its selfless sound, like a throaty chuckle, are found
In whispers throughout the places it has been, and in people
It has encountered. Much more than a simple man, it was, is.
But was is the correct phrasing
For the hand of gold, so loved,
Soon meets ground for raising
Into a plain known to none in
This turbulent material world
Where a flesh mind and hand
Will compare man to a clock
Or a clock to man. Inner time
Is a thing we all come to face,
It’s not the passing of a breeze
Or an appearance of molehills,
It is little of the world around
Us, it is centrally personal—I,
The time I am ready to depart,
Accepting all that we are,
And all that is the world.
We come to stare at it
Like terrified barn owls,
For it is no easy viewing.
But, let the ticking clock,
And those that have stopped,
Be a reminder of what we all face.
In a moment that comes once and never,
The keys of our tick will fall down below
Our wood bases, where we cannot reach,
Nor can any around us, our closest souls,
For the call of time is not on a clock face,
But in the leaking of life in all human race.
In memory of my grandad (1939 - 2024)