The Grandfather Clock

Towers of clocks besieged my childhood!

“Why were such scary items
given such friendly names
and placed in the homes
of such wonderful people?”
I pondered such questions way back when.

I was probably five or six years old at the time,
quiet,
inquisitive,
and maybe suffering with a slight tinge of Chronophobia;
‘although for the record,’
I wouldn’t have known what that meant back then.

We were standing at the beginning of the dawn of a new age, for the digital age was upon us,
yet still these old dinosaurs in tall wooden caskets with cogs, fingers, hands and faces,
stood imposing in the homes of all the old folks that I ever knew,
all the people that I thought the world of in fact.

I found it to be more than ironic then,
even as a child,
that these monstrosities were usually placed in their living rooms,
the very room that these people lived in,
the people that I thought the world of,
where, so forever after, on the hour, every hour, was slowly chimed away.

So from then on;

I began to count my time by the seasons rather than the seconds that ticked, ticked, ticked and then were gone,
for a tick is not a heartbeat,
it is merely a cold mechanical sound
and a second is not a warm to the touch sensation, you can’t even say “ I love you” properly, within a second.

Anyhow;

Never shall I wear time upon my wrist and carry the weight of man’s burden as part of my being,
for I need no chime to remind me of when the sun rises-
or when it sets.



© Lathen Griffiths 2022