Journeys

The clock in the hall struck ten

as I climbed up the stairs to my bed,

and I thought of the thousands of times

I had slept and got up to its’ chime. 

My father was born in this house

and Grandfather lived here too,

and my daughter just then in her sweet sixteenth year

had grown up to the tick of that clock. 

We all reached our prime and declined

while its’ fingers pressed on round its’ face,

but what was its’ native connection

with the grey hairs adorning my head?

What had it even to do

with the rolling and vast universe?

If I marched now away through the stars

in my trendy seven-light-year-stride boots

my body would age, I am told,

with its’ personal velocity rate.

The planets would revolve many more times

to each new grey hair on my head.

If I carried the clock on my back

its’ tick would keep time with my boots. 

A super-giant star blooms and fades

to a rather deep scary black hole,

and a rose in the park flares and dies,

each fulfilling its’ own given nature.

Fruition, decay, are the law

which we cannot escape or reverse.

 

But that’s not the end of the story.

The decomposed matter remains

arranging itself in new forms

in an orderly cycle of birth out of death

and recomposed life from the dead.