Poem 2/10/2016

I meditate a moment on my uncle's watch

When he died, it passed to me as these things do
I had often seen him wear it over the course of many years
Now, it is mine
I don't know its age or where he got it
But it has two bear claws and two oval turquoise stones
The silver is tooled with leaves, flowers, and the imitation of thread

It weighs a lot, for a watch
I seldom wear it
The clasp and the hinges sometimes pinch skin or hair
And anyway I have a mobile phone by which to tell the time
So it is a thing not of use, but beauty
And beauty is readily forgone these days

I don't know quite what to make of it
Whether to make myself wear it more often
Or put it away in a drawer someplace
Perhaps my endtable, where I will forget about it for months at a time
Finding it when I search for my checkbook
"Oh, there you are"

So it sits on the side of the table
It gets a bit dusty
And I pick it up to dust it and dust underneath and to check the action
To see does it still have power in the battery
(Yes it does)
And is the date right

I envy the mechanism of the watch
The hands only move forward, only progress
When the battery runs down it simply stops moving and waits
It can go on waiting forever
Not so people; we go backward and sideways sometimes
And most of us can only wait so long

But then, people and watches are very different things
And anyway, the hands are always starting over
By the minute, by the hour, by the half day
And people don't start over
A step backward does not cancel a step forward
Time is not a circle for us but a line

It is by stepping astray that we discern the happy way forward
That we build ourselves in knowledge and wisdom
The person who places every step surely walks in a circle
Like the watchhands safely circumscribed by quartz and silver
Walking until their feet wear a rut in time and they rest
But in waiting they wait forever; there are no batteries to change

I am still unconvinced
This watch has a purpose
One thousand years from now, kept safe from injury
This watch will still fulfill its purpose
And yes it will be outmoded and ancient and only beautiful
But I never had such a purpose, and I was never so beautiful

To be a mechanical man, ornamental
Laboring usefully and repetitively in a ring under the quartz
Surely no less happy than Camus' Sysiphus
Or the neglected stink tree of which Chuang Tzu sung
But not to be human, not to strive, to seek, to find- to yield
Or worse; to vacillate between man and machine, caught between opposing gravities

Smite the sounding furrows, then, though risking all
Perhaps washed down to those abysmal gulfs,
Or submit to the State and be a lawful King, miserable
It is too much for a simple watch that wants nothing more
Than to tell the time and be beautiful
And like the hands, my thoughts go round and round endlessly

I wear the watch
The clasp snaps into place
The loose weight interferes with my typing
I go round in circles thinking of my uncle
Of mechanical men and wild men
And in which direction I shall take my next step