Here's Another Poem I Love

Dot and The Clock

Time takes us by surprise. It's always rushing and running ahead of us, and suddenly we look up, wondering how everything happened so fast. But in this beautiful poem by Barbara Crooker (from Radiance, published in 2005, the first of six books of poems she has written) we are reminded of those precious moments when we somehow managed to pause and be, briefly oblivious to the ticking of the clocks. Enjoy and contemplate its truth.

In the Middle

of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather’s
has stopped at 9:20; we haven’t had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don’t ring. One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We’ll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

(by Barbara Crooker from Radiance)