"Look up here... I'm a child again."
In nursery light... a careless hand...
Sets spinning worlds of coloured sand.
A word like stone in waters thrown,
And ripples, deep and far... are sown.
No atlas then to chart the trace
Of scars left in this tender space.
We built our spires with unaware intent,
And called it play... our innocence misspent.
O, Time! You thief in grand attire!
You weave our days from blood and fire!
Yet in the quanta's silent gleam...
You are a fiction... a brief dream.
A present, stretched... a ghostly thread,
Where "was" and "will" by thought are bled.
A phantom flow! A staged descent!
In this, our solid... transient... lament.
The lens of age... with frosty breath...
Develops photographs... of death.
The child's blown seed... now towers tall...
A meaning we did not... install.
We sift the ashes of the spark,
And parse the grammar... of the dark.
The consequence... now fully grown...
Builds its cold altar... from our thrown stone.
O, TIME! You thief in GRAND ATTIRE!
You weave our days from BLOOD and FIRE!
Yet in the quanta's silent gleam...
You are a fiction... a brief dream.
A present, stretched... a ghostly thread,
Where "was" and "will" by thought are bled.
A phantom flow! A staged descent!
In this, our solid... transient...
...lament.
("All our yesterdays...")
Of deeds undressed... of their request.
The "why" arrives... a tardy guest...
("A tardy guest...")
To find the feast... already dressed.
And in the mirror... cracked and clear...
The future-past... is always...
...here.
O, Time... (You thief)... in grand attire... (a fiction)
You weave... (our days)... from blood and fire... (a brief dream)
Yet in the quanta... (the silent gleam)...
You are... the dream... I'm stretched within.
The ghostly thread... from end... to end...
A phantom...
So spin, my soul... your frail design
Upon this clockface... bold and blind.
We are the authors... reading late...
A tale we wrote... against our fate.
The only law... to mean... to be—
A fragile ship...
...on a phantom...
...sea.
