Timeline Poem by Louis Kasatkin

The Hours wait,
impatient
for the day
to start.

One, Two and Three,
begin to count
and count again,
the seconds
the minutes
every one of them.

Four and Five,
stare stolidly at those before
and at those to come,
knowing that it is early
and it's their time
in the Sun.

Six, Seven and Eight,
march the morning past
circadian, quotidian rythm
round and round,
round again until;

Nine and Ten,
hastening toward Noon
for whom the bell tolls,
that hour that is doom,
thine and theirs
and those of men
expedited by Nine and Ten;

until Eleven
arrives announced,
unwelcome harbinger
of the fading morn,
long forgotten dawn
passed by and waved at,
for one last time as
Eleven struts and frets
its three-score minutes
upon the clock,
and then its chimes
are heard no more.

Twelve
comes at High Noon,
on the Train,
a decision to be made
by someone stuck
between a hard place
and a rock,
all becomes clear
at Twelve
O'Clock.