urban dog
08-30-2007, 11:55 PM
THE ENIGMA OF TIME
I see scarcely a flow in the rivers and brooks,
- - Which are nearly as dry as the pools
In the parks. For time’s arrow beats like a bolero,
- - Advancing en route to the time
When red apples will fall, and leaf chaos will sprawl
- - On the earth, and the youth sit in schools.
Blue dragonflies dart above moss-covered ponds,
- - And on puddles swift bugs scoot around
As speedily streaking for prey they are seeking
- - ’Tween patches of soil and stones
As many an atom throughout an air stratum
- - Will zip round their azure playground.
Though the days still feel warm as a dog’s underbelly,
- - Night by night all the crickets get colder,
Their chirps getting slower, their pitch getting lower,
- - Till soon their shrill songs disappear
As the migrating birds fly away like the words
- - Of the whispering trees growing older,
Their leaves turning golden and scarlet and brown.
- - While the great gaseous globe in the sky
Will get meeker and shyer — look! — higher and higher
- - The stars of Orion will rise.
When deep snow blankets all, we will hardly recall
- - Summer’s heat. Not a soul can defy
The flight of the rotating Earth round the sun,
- - Which circles the vast Milky Way
Like a slow-spinning pail of water or ale,
- - Or the sweep of the hands of a clock,
Or a sunflower’s face as perforce it must trace
- - The great light, which it can’t but obey.
Copyright © 2007 by Martin Elster.
All Rights Reserved.
I see scarcely a flow in the rivers and brooks,
- - Which are nearly as dry as the pools
In the parks. For time’s arrow beats like a bolero,
- - Advancing en route to the time
When red apples will fall, and leaf chaos will sprawl
- - On the earth, and the youth sit in schools.
Blue dragonflies dart above moss-covered ponds,
- - And on puddles swift bugs scoot around
As speedily streaking for prey they are seeking
- - ’Tween patches of soil and stones
As many an atom throughout an air stratum
- - Will zip round their azure playground.
Though the days still feel warm as a dog’s underbelly,
- - Night by night all the crickets get colder,
Their chirps getting slower, their pitch getting lower,
- - Till soon their shrill songs disappear
As the migrating birds fly away like the words
- - Of the whispering trees growing older,
Their leaves turning golden and scarlet and brown.
- - While the great gaseous globe in the sky
Will get meeker and shyer — look! — higher and higher
- - The stars of Orion will rise.
When deep snow blankets all, we will hardly recall
- - Summer’s heat. Not a soul can defy
The flight of the rotating Earth round the sun,
- - Which circles the vast Milky Way
Like a slow-spinning pail of water or ale,
- - Or the sweep of the hands of a clock,
Or a sunflower’s face as perforce it must trace
- - The great light, which it can’t but obey.
Copyright © 2007 by Martin Elster.
All Rights Reserved.