Medbh McGuckian
Saxon Slave Clock
By ear instead of eye,
the time can be found in the dark,
the hour marks and hour lines
countersunk in the wheel.
A shadow falling on a flight of steps
in the neighbourhood of noon
is not perfectly sharp,
though walls flare and toss,
and the odd window of thin horn
burns with selected colour.
At a pre-set hour,
a self-going clock, being wound,
releases a light arm
carrying a jewel
on plain, uncut brass,
a pierced ruby as a bearing
distributing the new, marine hours
for the position of a ship at sea.
On the shortest winter afternoons,
or the shortest mornings,
the hands of clocks exposed
to the free wind and high weather,
count the light
of the mean, imaginary sun
like an ink trace
on a smoke surface,
quarter-chiming its celestial
equator, or the age of the moon.
At the outer end of spring,
the arc of their swing,
that was equal to the hours
during the major part
and near the mid-point
of the order of the day,
dies away closely.
It’s the watchman’s tell-
tale clock, driven inwards
by the four tides of a given star,
that’s the ideal timekeeper,
night dial in a wood lantern.
Page(s) 60-61
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