Who made Time provided also
Its Fools – Strapped in Watches²
Time is a Ship on a Merciless Sea –
Drifting toward an Abyss Of Nothingness
Until it can be Recharted for its own Destiny³
Words Weigh the Least, Death weighs Most,
Time weighs Nothing at all – but I can’t Bear it⁴
Time teaches us to Wail & Blink, to walk Alone,
Stare, Question, Wonder, give the world a Name,
Forget the Watery Darkness from whence we came⁵
Those who make a close study of Life believe that
Under the surface – is a Pillar of Motionless Time⁶
Time Splits its Husk, Pours its Riches – and falls
Like shells, shavings from a plane: Hard, White,
Imperishable, Words fly to attach themselves
To their places in an Immortal Ode to Time⁷
Do not Lose Time on daily Trivialities – do
Not Dwell on Petty Detail: for these things
Melt away in the Obscure Traffic of Time⁸
Time is not to be Trifled with, whether as
A medium of Advancement & Prosperity
In this world or Preparation for the Next⁹
We Throw Watches off the Roof to Cast
Ballots for an Eternity Outside of Time¹⁰
¹ John Ashbery, Hotel Lautréamont
² W.S. Merwin, A Scale in May
³ Umar Bin Hassan, Time
⁴ Li-Young Li, Changing Places in the Fire
⁵ Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet
⁶ Mary Ruefle, Grasshopper
⁷ Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
⁸ Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow
⁹ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Artist of the Beautiful
¹⁰ Allen Ginsberg, Howl