Ordinary Time Poem by Steven Federle

Counting
numbering days and nights
calculating the length
and breadth of
our alloted
breaths
we live
by the numbers.

It starts in a split second
of passion
in the darkness
plunging headlong
to a date certain
when savage lights assault
our tender eyes
and we see
how it will be
in this clock-
work world.

Time orders All.

Class bells
church bells
the grandfather clock
in the hallway
heavily chimes
as our lives sway
in the diurnal dance,
we wake and sleep
laugh and weep
and it is all very ordinary
until it is not;

then the chain breaks
and heavy weights
crush our vision's
persistence
and at last we subside
into inordinate
existence.