Is it possible that the tick
of the clock is all there is?
That tock is a figment of my
Imagination, projected by
an ear anxious to hear what
really isn’t there?
I’m amazed and
arrested by
the thought that the
tock of the clock is a ruse.
As this thought winds
its way through my body, I
recall those odd times when
my eye twitched without my
willing it to do so – twitch, twitch,
twitch – like the tick of a hand
racing across a face
looking to tock.
The clock just chimed 5:00 am
and the neighbourhood birds
are singing the sun up,
and the sun coaxes the earth
to turn again and again and
again without end.
The chimes fill the house,
every corner penetrated by
morning’s evangel.
I sit in the basement and scribble
this poem while around the world
this tick accompanies a death;
that tock witnesses a birth.
The hands are on the face:
now in delight; now in lament;
now in laughter; now…
in time to catch a tear.
