I post this next part so soon because of the support of @ClaireSheppard .
Enjoy.
ONE
The attic was ripe with black molding
and the cobwebs were not free of spiders.
Father had bid me a curt farewell
then locked the trapdoor in his leave.
This was my awakening.
“All is hush
and the nighttime is cool.” I said drowsily,
smarting to a reverberating GONG in the stretch.
I did not watch it now, but I had;
I knew the grandfather clock in the parlour
swung a golden pendulum from a silver chain,
the wheels of the mechanism
in audible wheeze and groan,
and the membrane of the mansion walls
were none too absorbent;
they, in fact, mirrored the beams of sound
almost perfectly.
I lay in my bed,
guarding the shriveled clasp of my eyes
open to the sudden shadow of a man
by the moonlit window.
I’d just acknowledged him
and the cognizance fancied a start.
He was, by my knowing, Dr. Jacobsen,
father’s personal psychologist,
here as companion to myself:
for none wishes to die alone –
however soon –
when gripped by a tumour.
“Does time as the clock announce its passing?”
he questioned as would a teacher.
-No,
it basks in benevolence and seeks belief.
-Does time take a path astray
forelong* it be convergent onto the road?
-No,
it chooses solely
the stream bereft of friction and broken edges
to flow most inaudibly
betwixt the rocks and sands of glass.
-Can time be brought by chain
or coaxed by silver?
-Lines parallel are unwavering
else they give shape.
-Can time tire?
-If the stream were coarser,
time would hold the world still.
-Does time in finality exist
among matter?
-Its shadow is hand-wrought
yet the sun shines no more.
-Time is not then
marked by a clock?
-No,
but one must follow rather than stay
within the greens withnot bread.
-What kind of master is time
to not break bread to the birds?
-Man is the hardened blacksmith,
the blinded poet
and the drifting dreamer.
He makes all but none,
and he feels all but none.
Yet he wants more.
He found no further was to be said,
and I fell weary to his depart.
“Only I am bold.” said he or I.
