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Hazel Hills

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Timewatch

"There is nothing that does not participate in nature.
It is impossible to escape. ...
The carriage that speeds through the night
in the morning is wet with dew."
                                 Andre Gide

And she sits, bowling along in that carriage.
She, in her gossamer green gown,
sits, and wonders at her strange yet known
companion, drawn into the shadows
resonating the high gothic song
of dung-beetles and pop-eyed spiders
hard scintillating automated jewels that cross
the damp olive moss of her days and weeks.
This is a public engagement that she hadn't planned.
Daily now. She is aware of the earthworms
working the friable ground; the hands
of the moon-dial clock stroking her flesh
with a film of dew that she fears will become
a wrinkled scum across the intervening years.

              


 

This poem [Timewatch] came from a writing group where we tried using as many as possible of the words we came up with by free association. The words were: Clock Hands Watch Film Scum Gossamer Damp Moss Song Engagement Public Spider Beetle Day Week Muscle Spinach Popeye Olive Oil
Someone commented, "You couldn't write anything serious from that collection of words" - and I decided right away that I'd try to do just that. Perhaps we could set a similar exercise at one of our meetings for "homework"?

Page(s) p8

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