Your new watch can tell
what time it is right down
to the second, the split second.
Your new watch has no face;
instead there’s a blinking grill
where the numbers change
constantly. I would like to say
that in this rapid split-second
parade we can see the flow
of time — always changing,
never changing, a river slipping
over rocks and sand – but it’s
only time, a human concept
after all, not a real river.
Your new watch honors
each second by giving it
its own number which tumbles
swiftly away, anchoring us,
if we let it, in Now.
Still I prefer the grace
of the analog clock
with its face, its hands,
where every moment
is linked to those around it:
each moment has a history
and a future, where it’s
ten past the hour, half past,
a quarter till, five of, as though
each moment is truly part
of a fluid whole. But in fact
the real tellers of time
are the sun, the sky,
the wrinkles on our faces,
the bruises on our souls.


From Wild Domestic (Pearl Editions, 2011).
Used with the author’s permission.