the clock works

 

the digital lockstep

time. . .

early every morning I give at least 

20 minutes of my day to meditation,

before I eat breakfast,

before I get going fully,

I concentrate on groups of words,

on deepness of thoughts

from all the traditions I can find, and appreciate,

short collections of words that hold my soul,

and build into grandness,

words that pull me up, and down,

into a clarity of moment, divorced from the hubbub,

I have been meditating this way for decades,

and in the troubled night of my dreams,

I can find myself focusing on each chunk of words

that help me center into rightness,

I usually use a digital watch

to make sure I allot enough time for the work,

instead, today, I looked up at an analog clock,

with time passing in a clockwise circle,

marked by the clockwise slow movement of the hands,

time challenges me:

how much is it a linear progression to the next moment?

how much is it a circular repetition of pattern,

so that continuity is as transcendent as change,

I lose track of the calendar at times

month flows into month, day into day,

and I don't really know where I am,

when I am, in terms of the year,

the present is the easiest reality, just to be here, now,

yet patterns pull at me

I want to know how my present fits into past and future,

the digital lockstep is replacing the circling truth

of the hands of the clock,

of equinoxes and solstices,

of the 13 Moons of the year,

we gain clarity and efficiency with the digital,

what do we lose?

by Henry H. Walker

April  11, ‘25