#103: The Little Hand Is On (Time)

You Can Jump And Twitch And Plotch . . .
And Play At Hops And Pops And Scotch . . .
And, Yeah, That Helps To Wind Your Watch,
If Just Another Rhyme!
But Days Will Always Make Their Notch
Upon Your Handle, And Your Crotch.
Here-A-Wrinkle, There-A-Splotch . . .
And You're Just Marking Time.

So we stopped at what appeared to be
a tiny parking lot.
Flashing signs on all four sides
displayed a single dot.

The door flipped up, and I got out
there to investigate.
It didn't seem too big a-deal,
and Jo was going to wait.

I walked up to the nearest sign,
and noticed that they all
had buttons that a man could push . . .
just like a crossing walk.

I pushed the button, and thought I'd see
the "Walk / Don't Walk" appear.
Instead a series of numbers flashed . . .
mysterious, but clear.

Like standing 'neath a stadium screen
that keeps the inning scores,
I stared at lines of digits, and
I read them, heres-to-4s.

More imposing than great statues, these,
when seen from just below,
showed numbers all divided up,
nine pairs, all in a row.

They all flew by, too fast to count,
and then the last sequence,
appeared to count, but in reverse . . .
as if that made some sense.

I guess I must have stepped too close,
'cause in a flash I saw
a different world with nothing of
the parking lot at all.

Jumping back in shock, I heard
the slamming Buggy door.
"Where'd you go?" Jo-Mima yelled . . .
"And wha'd you do that for?"

"Holy shit!!" He stared at me
as if I were a ghost.
"Bo, you've lost at least ten years,
or something very close."

Not feeling any different, and
pleasantly energized,
and, certainly unable to
peruse what met his eyes . . .

I looked up at the opposite sign . . .
across the parking lot.
It sat there like the rest of them . . .
with only one big dot.

And Jo was still a bit aghast,
as wordlessly, I crossed
the asphalt of that parking lot,
where my 10 years were tossed.

I walked up pretty confidently to
the buttons, and I pushed . . .
the numbers starting flashing past,
and then a doorway wooshed.

I saw a gaping, shimmering scene
shadowy sights and sounds.
It was like ethereal air and space,
with no real sky or ground.

And again, the last four digits changed,
as seconds and their tenths.
At least, this time they seemed to pass
to future from time hence.

So I carefully stuck my foot into
that space of blurry dream.
A second later I pulled it back
to hear Jo-Mima's scream.

He looked at me with widening eyes,
as if he'd met his fears,
"Yeow, my friend, it's like you've aged
at least a hundred years."

Thus, hobbling over to another sign,
feeling a little strange . . .
well, not that I felt all that old,
but I could feel a change.

I pushed the button. The sign lit up . . .
and I stuck out my toe.
I pulled it back, and took a breath
and looked around at Jo.

"Hey, you're back," his words came like
a reassuring prayer.
"What the hell is going on?
You gave me quite a scare."

"So finally, I'm back at Now . . .
and maybe aged a notch."
I turned to Jo, "What time is it?"
He reached to show his watch.

I was glad to see the spinning hands,
and not a digital read,
but I never saw a watch's arms
turn with so much speed.

Back and forth, without let up,
nor one consistency . . .
like all the springs had fully sprung,
and screwed up, mechanically.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised,"
the Voice came echoing,
bouncing from the panels, and,
setting our ears to ring.

"You boys will find a moment's luck
in every temporal scape.
And that, alone, will move me now
to help you from a scrape.

You Humans talk of time as though
it happens in a line,
as if the hours and epochs were
just metered lengths of twine.

Your aging likely indicates
there's something of a flow . . .
and it's relatively constant, and
that's all you ever know.

But before you try to understand
a thing that's this complex,
by studying some mouse's face,
that winds each time you flex . . .

and consider, for a moment, that
a symbol which you use,
the River, takes you but one way . . .
though straight, it will not choose.

From mountain tops, you'll see that old
man, River, winding 'cross
a valley floor, come back and forth,
adorned with leaf and moss.

It's funny . . . the river rafter who
doth ride that current, hath
so rarely had the vision of
his true, meandered path.

Much more than the symbol, river, will
time's nature e'er confuse
men beyond dimensions, like
the best of life's corkscrews.

Your rivers writhe through valley plains.
They show you back and forth . . .
but time meanders West and East,
as well as South and North.

So, see yourself, now, riding through
the corkscrew of all time.
Your cretin fiction writers might
portray it as a wind . . .

but, say you choose a point, and turn
the direction of the screw . . .
now, off the blade you travel, and
into the cork, straight through.

From blade to blade, to infinity,
as through some endless corks . . .
you recognize the turn you took
was one of endless forks.

Each blade you touch is only one
of endless points of arc . . .
infinite points on infinite curves
you could well disembark."

"Whoa," Jo shouted, with both his hands
pressed up against his ears.
"Are we supposed to learn all this?
We're not engineers!"

The tone of Voice came back to us
with lots of sympathy . . .
forgiving as I'd ever heard
it speak to Jo and me.

"Don't try to weigh and measure it.
Don't fret about its pace.
The doing of its passing is
what turns it to a race."

The Voice's words attacked our minds,
and stuck like spikes with glue.
But, still, we couldn't figure out
what we'd been witness to.

"For all we're s'posed to learn out here,"
I told Jo, with a glance,
"I sure don't feel we've learned much of
what's moving Mickey's hands."


"Well, I don't know its starting point,
regardless what we've said,
and less, the food-for-thought the Voice
might think its words have fed . . .

but, it seems to me, if harvested,
time could make us rich . . .
since nothing seems more valued when
you count up every stitch.

In youth, we had so much of it,
we wouldn't give a cent
for years . . . indeed, our agelessness
was something we'd resent.

And then, the tables turn on us . . .
we learn 'for ever more'
are only poets' whimsy words,
'cause years don't keep in store.

A commodity, and perhaps the best
example of its kin . . .
when saving it is useless, and
might even be a sin.

It's using it completely that
values it the best . . .
so let's get going, before we find
we've wasted all the rest."

As wise as was Jo-Mima's sound,
I wasn't sure I'd heard
the key that got us out of there . . .
that magic little word.

But the Buggy surely revved up when
I dropped down in my seat.
It sprang to life, as the dashboard clock
was flashing, "Obsolete."