Time

Time
by Gideon Burton

In time there isn't measure, though we square
oblong infinities with stark precisions:
the nesting seconds, minutes, hours -- bare
and clean as mathematic's cold divisions.
Machines keep time so well that we pretend
that sequenced order orders very little.
The spiral-cycled years both flex and bend,
elastic in their folds, or thinly brittle.
As I return I find the things that time
declared were evanescent, lost as mist
against the sunrise or that steady climb
of heartbeats calming in a moment's twist.
     A bright tableau defined with finite names;
     time is an organ that reorders change.

Photo: flickr - Andy Saxton 2006