Daylight Savings Time

I thought that time was on my side

The ticking progress of the clock

The westward passage of the sun

Every minute brought me closer

 

To naptime, bus time

Screen time, bedtime

When my time

Would be mine again.

 

But there are things that I forget:

That time goes one way only

That ticking clocks are counting down

And after day comes night, and endings.

 

The end of play for its own sake

The end of eyes-wide wonder

Of when my arms could carry them

Of when they called me Daddy.

 

And one day I will watch the clock

In the twilight of a silent house

When all my time is mine alone

Though I’d give it all to share it.

Weapons Test

Good morning little Fury

Won’t you show me what you made?

Last night in the labs and test beds

Of your steel-and-flannel heart.

 

Let me be your barren desert

And your blasted half-moon atoll

Where you loose your tiny ragings

And unleash your infant hells.

 

This is the place to test them all

So empty out your silos here

There’s nothing here that can be lost

No one who can help but love you.

 

And when the light and roar and heat have faded

And all your weapons have been spent

You’ll have seen what they can do

And reach, perhaps, for different tools.

Yesterday And Today

Yesterday there was life in the nest

Four lives stacked two deep

With heads thrown back

Mouths wide in the faith

That the sky would bring provision.

 

Today the nest is gone.

I see a thin black cat

That wasn’t there before

I see the mother and the father bird

They are too little, they are too late.

 

My kids ask me to pick them up

So they can see the nest,

the baby birds, like yesterday.

But I tell them they have flown away

Because today is not a day like yesterday.

Age Of Anawim

Princess Anawim, four years old

You were born to overthrow me

Terrible in all your beauty

And endless in your energies.

 

Made of music and sharp white teeth

Hair that streams like banners behind

Blazing eyes fixed on tyranny

That you very nearly deserve.

 

Princess Anawim I’d throw down

The crown of my paternity

If I thought I could bear to see

My daughter rise a tyrant-queen.

 

But your prostrate future subjects

Would burn my bones and curse my name

As he who brought their doom to pass

The endless age of Anawim.

 

So I’ll hold the throne against you

And keep your glory in its place

Just long enough for you to learn

A crown is for the casting down.