Timekeeper

Time at its own pace has traveled to the desert and slept in the sand.

Its face has been seen through glass, not asleep, but

awake where only one has recognized its value

as more than a timekeeper inside a giant man named Ben

in London. It counts the seconds

from birth to death. It claps

its hands, too small for its face, when it

strikes 12 in January and celebration

screams the name of a year of 4 digits

and 12 months to the gray-haired and elderly wise keeper

often seen as a jubilant, ignorant baby with a sash

fit for a beauty queen who parades on clouds.

The keeper has drank his champagne and seen his

glass filled with memories of war and happiness.

Each gray hair is from the passing of great leaders

and the tender invisible scars of war

still deep and red inside him, are from the shedding of unneeded blood and mother’s tears. The keeper is never loved, he is vexed with lateness and slowness,

of curses of angry drivers loud, clanking shoes, and frustrated breathes.

He means no harm, he’s doing his job,

a cursed job, a job needed more than any other.

He cannot go back to his youth or see what the future holds, he is forced

to seemingly live the same day,day after day, all different but the same to him.

He wishes time would stop, not at true love, but for him to stop running in circles.

To live a life not run on batteries and machines- will a life as this exist for him?

He deserves it, but will never see this wish granted by a genie.

But he learns to be content, as do we all, and to not a waste a day filled with promise or to dash the hopes of a better tomorrow.