Ten-Finger Exercises

An Untimely Death

Time Paradigm

I pick through the drawer,
Handling, hefting, turning
Small rectangles, bigger circles,
Some as big as fifty cent pieces,
White gold, yellow, stainless steel.

All the intricate pieces
Are in their proper places,
Carefully tuned to each other,
Ready to tick off their precise
Calculations, marking time.
But nothing is happening.
Time goes by unmarked,
Drifting the river or sliding home
And only measured subjectively
Somewhere between infinite
And instantaneous.
No matter how
reliable or predictable,
Even a watch needs to be wound
Regularly
In order to keep running.

On my wrist is a plastic disk
With its digital readout
Accurate, easy to scan.
If I tucked it in my purse
Or left it in my suitcase
For weeks on end
It would still be
Tirelessly ticking off
The minutes, hours and days
Ticklessly.
If it quits and a new battery
Fails to revive it
It will not be worth saving.