Hearing, Seeing: Ticking of Time

A few nights ago, I sat at the kitchen table as always later than planned in the evening, waiting. There is a clock on the wall, a beautiful clock from the Audubon society with twelve birds on it, which sing on the hour. Well, they used to, we disabled the sound after listening to it for a few years. My violin teacher had this clock my first year in New York, 1997, and when I saw it, I knew it would make a perfect gift for my mom. And I found it for $10 at Weber's on Broadway and 68th - a kind of dollar store that had all kinds of interesting and wonderful things, from a mug I still use, to an elegant off-the-shoulder top - and so on. In any case, I did fit it in my suitcase, and brought it to my parents, where it's been on the wall ever since:

Time's Progression

The ticking of a clock - 
- hearing it, is always in the past
the empty tick tick tick of waiting,

waiting for a grieving person to rejoin time,

the lifeblood of the living.

Yet watching the clock, silently, ticking -
- waiting, again, for the ill parent or pet or both to convalesce,

to once again begin to live forever -
- seeing it, time moves forward, 
there is motion, hope for the future,

as the visible steady flow progresses,
inviting the story to continue,
maybe not forever, but at least for now,

and the next moment, and the next, and the next ...