Keeping Time

Oct 28 2017

I watch the second hand

steadily circling

from twelve

                       ...to twelve

                                             ...to twelve.

Its effect is hypnotic,

so even as precious time

is seeping away

I am also oddly comforted,

eyes glazing over

under its spell.

With smooth relentless consistency

the closed loop

repeats and repeats.

As if beginning and end

could all happen at once.

As if an entire life

could be taken in at a glance.

Thin and red

it points silently

but never touches,

skirting the seconds, the numbers, the edge.

An indifferent mechanical device,

keeping time, as time vanishes

without animus

judgment

or dread.

The withered finger

of the Angel of Death

will point as silently

when his time eventually comes.

In His dark cowl

He will walk sombrely

and we will wordlessly follow along,

across the verge

the threshold

the veil.

As the second hand turns

and turns again.

As creatures of post-Enlightenment modernism, we see time as linear: history progresses; the future is limitless; we have agency. But for hundreds of thousands of years, time was cyclic: time and place never changed; we lived exactly as our forbears had lived; and without the conceits of individualism and personal agency, we were communal and fatalistic.

Yet our version of analog time recapitulates this ancient worldview. As I was closing up my iPad – of all things to bring an ancient worldview to mind! – the traditional clock icon caught and held my eye: the thin red second hand steadily and relentlessly circling, coming around again and again.

It was as if time wasn't passing at all; it simply continued in place, held in this 60 second interval. It was as if the future and past had telescoped in, and so were rendered meaningless: everything had equalized; nothing essential changed. With only a second hand, there is no keeping track. And in place of the oppressive feeling of time's relentless passage, I felt a reassuring calm: as if as long as I looked, time stood still.

So I put the first stanza down on the page, and from there the poem wrote itself. I don't accept the notion of an after-life – death is final, there is no soul, the mind does not exist outside of the brain – yet the poem ends up toying with the idea of cycles and continuity and another side. In that it captures the feeling of serenity I got from that sure steady second hand, I can live with a little magical thinking. There is no evidence for anything beyond the reality we know; but an open mind has to acknowledge that doesn't mean this reality is all there is. Because as someone who prefers reason and rigour over belief and wishful thinking, even I have to admit that you can't prove a negative.

My favourite line is keeping time, as time vanishes. I like the conceit inherent in the expression keeping time: as if keeping track was the same as taking possession.

I also just realized that I've used this title before. Then as now, I was attracted to the same paradox: as if you could "keep" something that is so ephemeral. I'm usually dissatisfied when I revisit old poems. I want to tinker and tweak. But I'm OK with this one. Here's the link: http://brianspoetryjournal.blogspot.ca/search?q=Keeping+Time