TIME IS THAT WHICH IS

BETWEEN NOW AND NOW

..................................................................................................ARISTOTLE
 
 

"WHEN A CLOCK IS SEEN FROM  THE SIDE (PROFILE) IT NO LONGER TELLS THE TIME"

• ..............Marcel Duchamp                         ...       .......... 

SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN

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*  *  *  *   *  *  *  *
 
 

A clock stopped -- not the mantel's

Geneva's farthest skill

Can't put the puppet bowing

That just now dangled still.

*

An awe came on the trinket!

The figures hunched with pain,

Then quivered out of decimals

Into degreeless noon.

*

It will not stir for doctors,

This pendulum of snow;

The shopman importunes it,

While cool, concernless

*

NoNods from the gilded pointers,

Nods from seconds slim,

Decades of arrogance between

The dial life and him.
 
 

   -Emily Dickinson

* * * * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * * *
 

After all,
tomorrow IS
another day

     -Scarlet O'Hara

• 
EASTERN DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

TIME is running out like sand between the plump fingers

of a toddler that I once was   my children were   children

everywhere up there on a flying beach carpet along the shore

of a big clock   an ocean of time   never enough
 
 

DAYLIGHT is ebbing like the tide as it trickles   foams claps

like the little hands of a two-year-old delighted eternally at the sight

of the dancing diamond waters rippling up   then over these little toes

then back down into the depths   the damp beginnings of night
 
 

TIME is churning and rolling like little wavelets startled to find

themselves surging up on this clockless shore to peter out like grains

of sand like drops of water trickling into the tiniest coves

until water    sand    mind    mingle yield up joys and pains
 
 

DAYLIGHT is receding into autumn   into memory grown gold and silver

like the delicate clouds drawn on paper by a small child   like water

where slivers of smiles and sadness all mix and tingle   like pictures

of the past fading curling leaving us sans sons and daughters
 
 

-Mary Herbert
 
 
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MOUNT NORWOTTOCK

 
 

Some mountains divide time--

rarities flow across it,

most show time while a few defy it.
 
 

Moonrise, a summer evening hums

into shades of blue.At the base

of Norwottock a couple quarrels

about the aesthetics of view.

She wants to scale the mountain,

knows certain theories slow time

with elevation, and desires

to see her watch run backwards.

He's not interested in slowing

anything. Like the river reflecting

the mountain he wants to feel

the constancy of flowing forward.
 
 

In the landscape of relationships

the impact of peaks and valleys

turns time into success and failure.







                                                     -Robert Steinem

 
(the glance)
Is she looking out, or inviting

us in? Does a watched clock tick,or

does a clock watching make us

tick? Time can be sinister.Our

inventions bind us, tie us to patterns

running out-- the rise and fall

of empires, of chests, of

shoveled earth filling graves.
 
 

Death makes us creative it you stop

to think about it. Time is the matrix

triggering all the senses. Sundials,

water clocks, hour glasses, gears

and pendulums, digital blinks--

a history of counting increments.

Maybe she lives in another time altogether

where a glance simply tells what day it is.
 
 

                              -Robert Steinem
 

 

There are obvious rhythms here--

the pulse of his heart, the pull

of the sun and moon, the throb

of fluids. He appears casual, prone,

naked, head resting on one arm

while gazing toward water lapping

quietly below, but complexity

is intrinsic. He could be crying

with his back turned to the world.

The marble bench is sacrifcial,

and all that he had to give

has been taken except for his life.
 
 

Or he could be smiling,

anticipating his lover rising up

from the sea, hair falling

in delicate wet ringlets

along her neck above her breasts.

When she comes to him, her body

and breath will be scented

with the briny hint of origins

and magic. This is leisure time,

benign, charted solely by the loop

of circulation and the possibilities

contained within each breaking wave.
 
 

Robert Steinem