To Time His Last Hours

To Time His Last Hours

Its been thirty years now

Hasn’t it?

Been that long

Since that old woman said

“My grandfather’s clock?

No, not today.

Yet, any day

But sooner I guess I must believe.

It will be yours

And you must get it

Before

They take it

After they’ve taken

Me

And be leaving my grandfather’s clock

Behind.”

“It does not work”

She told me

“And has not for years.”

Pointing to the “dial”

With the limp hands folded

Down

At six thirty

Always

The movement

That are ‘the clock’s works’

She calls them

In the box on the attic floor

“They must be”.

“Tried to get it fixed

Sometime someone

Must have maybe

Mother did.”

“Don’t know

But beens that way

Now since I a

Child I guess”.

Her not Grandfather

But his great, great,

Great grandfather’s.

Must have been him

Who after the war

And a sea captain

At home

From coastal trading

Traded his coin

After a tavern keep.

He wandered in

And found that movement

By one man’s hand

In a case by a second man’s

Hand for sale

And it a bigger grandee then he

Being punch bowl drunk

And reminded of his mate

Swept off the deck; his friend

Lost at sea

And of his boy now

Ten years dead by

“Killed in the woods”;

A tree.

So wandered home He

With this clock lashed

To his deck to time

His last hours and

For his wife

Who thought it

An odd gift instead

Of pearls like once before.

“My mother’s pearls” she

Once showed me.

“No.  Never.  For sale.

Ever.”

Her great, great.

Great grandmother’s pearls.

But I say nothing

And wait out the years.

To one day be the

Carrier carrying the movement

Box and

Two - I found them separated - weights

Out the front door

To follow the

Clock case that I’d

Removed the face and hands

From carefully

Keeping the hands in my

Shirt pocket upon

My heart

Where they should have

Themselves kept them

But a daughter again tells me

“It does not work”

And is holding the small

Old paper box

With the pearls that are

Still “No.  Never.  For sale.  Ever.”