The Tyranny of Time
In our measure of the passing time,
Curious circles fill the counted days—
Numbered moments scarred by transiting light,
The heaven’s moguls bruise our joy and blight,
And give, and take, and measure what we mean.
Time, indifferent, measures us; it loops
Around the heaven’s span and grids the world.
Saturn still stutters—constant sorrow speaks—
Today recedes into tomorrow’s loss;
Yet clocks in circles go, and we pay cost.
O god of time, your circles go and go,
Returning slow, then turning wingèd, fast—
They come, they go—there’s time enough for love.
Meanwhile I scan the horizon with my mind,
And seek the curve of her Belt of Venus—fire—
A circumference of sunset reds that span
The sky; on sight she’s timeless, swaying slow,
A pendulum—its fixed foot steady—rings
My day; her pulse keeps measure as it swings.
And in night’s sanctuary, as we roll
On sweat-slippery fields of red-ochre bliss,
We kiss the kiss that turns and kisses back.
Then, as I watch her breathing come to rest,
Time stops—
and takes my breath away.
Copyright © Jerry Whalley | Year Posted 2025
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