Little Clock

for Gertrud Widmayer, my landlady at Heidelberg Why in pensive ticking, silent thoughts You wile your time away When all around huge swelling bells Toll the days away! Every hour that announced may go Your silent hands take hold And though the ages chimed in ears Yours they never behold. If all the clocks the world had known Had struck one strong big note, They would never still your plodding tone Nor the working hearth you alert. Do you wonder, wonder, little clock What makes the grandfather tick! Or his aching belly in the depth of sorrow Cries to the world it's sick! Thirty million years and Pleistocene dark, They are one split second short! And whimpering suns that rise and flop Have scarce stolen your tick or thought! So, my little clock, my faithful clock When I hear the tall town bell, I'll shrug my shoulders, one tiny moment And know that all is well. © T. Wignesan, 1957 (from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)