Five Poems about Time

 

THE CLOCK

We divide the clock

Into pie segments

To show, self-indulgently,

We are masters of time.

 

Serving up plates, we

Apportion hours a la carte,

Spearing minutes with a fork.

Wistfully, we sip on seconds.

 

We park our legs high

On a chair, lean back,

Saying, this year I will do this,

Next year that.

 

But time yields to no master:

Heedless brute, it is an

Inexorable mule,

Spinning sun, ruthless.

 

Only a cosmic force,

Colossal as stars collapsing,

Warping space like plastic

Has the arm to rein in time,

 

Rearing neighing stallion,

Bull kept at bay.

Time answers to no one.

We answer to time.

 

Already it holds us

On a leash, shortening:

We strain forward;

It pulls us in.

 

Helpless fish,

We must forsake fruit

Just beyond our reach.

And we are bound to tell time

 

Our narrative when it ends.

Now the clock strikes:

Bells ring, sonorous,

Pure as childhood,

 

Shining as youth,

Florid as love, 

Consummate as wisdom 

…the spring runs out.

 

The clock has come…

The clock has come

To tell the time.

He chimes to close

A line with rhyme,

End a stanza,

Chop chapters short—

A rifle volley,

A loud report,

Rushing winds,

Wistful bells,

Sacrificial flames,

Paper farewells.

So hasten to scatter

Blossoms of love—

Fading below,

Unforgotten above.

 

 

I love to listen to your resonant chimes…

I love to listen to your resonant chimes,

Echoing, full, round,

Collecting clear musical pools,

Bright waterfalls of sound.

I love to hear your brilliant bells

Singing, mountain stream,

Flowing concourse of luminous notes

Arranged to a liquid theme.

I love to hear your hammers strike,

Ripples across a lake.

If clock is water, water is life—

Reminder I am still awake.

 

CONSCIOUSNESS OF TIME

The sun wakes, bright as childhood.

Night sleeps, mountain shadows.

Seasons hurry, traveling rain.

Time ends, fragrance of fresh linen.

 

 

TIME IS NO MORE

The sun dwells in darkness.

The moon lives in light.

The owl hunts at daytime.

The falcon prowls at night.

The dead dines with the living.

The living dreams, awake.

The eternal is not the future.

The river of time is a lake.

 

Clock Tower of Manila City Hall