#granite-gruss

[thepotentialof2007]

All clocks in themselves are serene. It is their task to run down.

And so the clock of the tree welcomes its beetles and lichens, the clock of the house feasts with its termites.

And still the clock of the marrow spills out its cells gone wrong and the clock of the family falters, unoiled and forgotten. The living clock of fallible springs runs side by side with the death-clock of quartz, and neither clock can touch the hands of the other.

Some clocks are indifferent and perfect, others bend over as walking animals under strong wind.

Even the clock of blue, uprisen granite carries within it the cooling clock of its own erosion to gruss. Whole ranges this way disappear, obeying their clocks, while the clock of a grove of aspen, in theory immortal, still shivers each season's gold-leaf into the wind.

A wet dog comes into the kitchen to shake off her wetness. The drops fall, then dry: a clock's ticking gone suddenly still.

The clock of a memory not remembered is not stopped, as the clock of a memory is not stopped.

_

excerpted from Clocks, by Jane Hirshfield