Marking Time Poem by Bill Galvin

Sitting in a quiet room,
No other sound around,
Except for a ticking clock.

Listen to that ticking;
A regular old-time rhythm…
Ticking, ticking, but without a tock.

Sun Stones and megaliths,
Hourglasses and calendars,
Sundials and the minute hand;

Water-driven, pendulums or springs,
Battery, electric and atomic…
All timely inventions of man.

The sun, moon and stars;
Navigational zones;
So, too, UTC, GPS, and GMT.

But sitting within an interval…
A meditative quietude…
All concepts of time eluding me.

Hypnosis of my moments whir…
(Tick… tick… louder and louder)
A metronome of time.

The clock is measuring still,
But only till the energy runs down,
Either that of it… or mine.


May 31,2019
(Two-hundredth birthday of Walt Whitman)