Time's Birthday

Time's Birthday by Odin Roark How daunting it must be Choosing a celebratory date Invention adrift Save the blue veined appendages Holding firm the drift of time Like a floating surreal image Making its way up 5th Avenue On Thanksgiving Day How buoyant Time Yet arguably ungrounded Measuring not how life will continue But only how existence has passed Each year Month Week Day Hour Minute And second An ancestral funeral Survived only by tomorrow's unknown A system invented to archive Circuitous syndromes Man-made phobias Moment by moment reality Representing synchronous movement Rhythmically evaporating into The ethereal collaborative The indeterminate character of eternity The immeasurable Unfathomable Moment that is now No wind-up needed Still Time insists on benchmarks Symbolic definitions The behind and ahead of calendars Noted by way of bell-ringing Clock-chiming Sun rising and setting Unlike us Time's validation Knows not culinary vices Ice cream and cake Champagne and caviar And those other accouterments Hauled out to attest Our superior intellect Noisemakers and confetti