On the Clock

I always think it’s a dream, you know, that whole today is ending now,
the clock ticking me up to midnight with the sun long down.
Each step I take, a beat of the second-hand, is really no step,
is maybe an unstep, time actually rounding counter-clockwise,
not righty-tighty, but lefty-loosey, I believe, you know?
If I really look, I can see my face in the crystal cover,
my expression curving away to disappearance at the edges,
infinitely obtuse about living the illusion of moving forward,
positive progress, when at best I’m stepping in place,
at worst walking imperceptibly backward supposing I’m moving ahead.
Progression.  That’s what we’ve been taught,
what we’ve learned to assume all the years of our lives.
Funny.  It’s so what puts the tragic in whatever magic of existence,
that tricky ticking to laxity of the unwinding clock
with no key known to tighten back up the spring,
slacking to rest with the using up of the using down.
And all of it actually unknown by me, even if I were
the keenest seeker of them all, someone who never tired
of searching it the dark for all that in the sun’s gone
and done up until the twelve night chimes no more to find.