Bringing in the sheaves

The flashing colon on the face of the digital clock, the way afternoon light illumines the frosted windows, the demanding cat wanting breakfast early, clearly not on daylight savings time. Explain that to the horses or the dogs if you have them. Time racing ahead at breakneck speed the older you get, the faster it goes..Time was once measured by water clocks, or nails embedded into burning candles that fell on the hour. Iron clattered onto the table or the stone floor, like tiny hooves, sleep disturbed by time. The monks were obsessed by time, for the world revolved around increments of time, because the universe would not hold, because God, hungry for dogma, needed constant assuaging and reassurance in the form of prayer from his followers. They were marking time for an inevitable future that may or may not come. The Medieval Book of Hours was a guidebook of feast days, measuring the seasons. On what tombstone, what prayer was etched in stone? The laws of oscillation, the guard rails of our lives keeping us in check. Time is cyclical, or perhaps it is a sickle, Ceres bringing in the sheaves.

1/17/24 Write On! with Nancy Woo