Time is not a fixed something. Time as perceived by man is only movement, action, process, growth, change. If no change takes place one hardly notices time.
You, thief on the wall, calendar
criss-crossing me left to right,
fitting me into a numbered grid,
planting me row upon row, as if
I were corn planted to march
as soldiers in formation,
shrinking me to Tom Thumb size
as if I were a toy, a composition
I do not comprehend at all.
You sketch my fleeting minutes,
string me east-west, north- south,
pole to pole, head to toe taut ,
fingertip to chronometric fingertip.
You would reformulate me,
change me to a square right-angled
month-to-month twelve page year,
make me more invisible than not.
Oddly your focus steadies me
as I shift, pulse, wisp, puff,
and spurt in bursts of hours
through my living room, kitchen,
bedroom, bathroom, and hall.
With your insistence I prevail,
but I was here before a calends
ever knew, with Leonardo painting
Mona Lisa, telling her to sit still
so he could see her true, before
you overtook them on your way
to stealing me. As I live and breathe
in the circus of the sun, you thieve
as no other, steal from movement
in consciousness, measure its
incalculability, and, bare-faced,
hang yourself on my kitchen wall.
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