Time Time Time Time
In time running out of time give me the time of day is it that time already
out of time in time look at the time don’t have the time take the time
watches alarms bells whistles sun dials arrivals
Time Time Time Time
What do we do with it? What would we do without it? Is it real? Is it an artificial construct? In the poem today, two people count time, and one counts time forward and one counts backward. Why the difference?
Why can’t we move around in time the way we do in space? Why do we seem to be stuck on a relentless one-way conveyor belt into the future? Was there a beginning of the universe, and if so, what happened before?
The measurement of time began with the invention of sundials in ancient Egypt some time prior to 1500 B.C. However, the time the Egyptians measured was not the same as the time today's clocks measure. For the Egyptians, and indeed for a further three millennia, the basic unit of time was the period of daylight.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) said that Time is a prime conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics, measured and malleable in relativity while assumed as background (and not an observable) in quantum mechanics. To many physicists, while we experience time as psychologically real, time is not fundamentally real.
Our subjective sense of time seems to flow in one direction, which is why we remember the past and not the future. Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) claims that our brain measures time in a way where disorder increases in the direction of time – we never observe it working in the opposite direction.
“Time is unlikely to end in our lifetime, but there is a 50% chance that time will end within the next 3.7 billion years", says rebel physicist, Raphael Bousso. In other words, the end of time is likely to happen within the lifetime of the Earth and our Sun.
Isaac Newton (1643-1727) said that we are merely occupying time, he also says that humans can only understand relative time. Relative time is a measurement of objects in motion. The anti-realists believed that time is merely a convenient intellectual concept for humans to understand events. Time is not an empirical concept. It cannot be proven.
It is not real.
Counting
α
. . .3- -2- -1 - - we have ignition
separation
ground to air ⫛
10-9-8~7~~6~~~5~~~~~
lingering ~~ half/clinging
~to the swaying silver light
no one has to answer
sliding
shade
dimming
black
gone under ⩦
all that once held meaning
drains away – even dreaming
Two count in one time
the first counts decades coming,
the other counts backward from future unravelling
Both prey to the black-anodized reaper
who toys with them – a boy pulling flies’ wings
TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK
clocks’ hands on faces never stop
Two Little Piggies
One Big Wolf
Who’s under that tattered red hood
Long and not so far in elsewhere time
held probabilities– counting forward – counting higher
could not wait for the storied “what” to expire
months and years rivering their course
toward inevitable ice or fire
or something else
10 – 11 – 12
promenade
graduation
faked congratulations
TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK
Dance with me to the midnight clock
round and round the fickle watch
Kiss me once
Kiss me twice
To think of that feels so nice
one true love
TICK ѠШ ӝ
perhaps children six
TOCK
Darn kids make me sick
Love Potion # 9 didn’t work, of course
relief follows the first divorce
TICK ⩤ · ⩥
Ignore the one who planned, intended
2 + 6 equals can’t be mended
TOCK
Still, the 12 days of Christmas come around
one ragged partridge hIGung from a tree
but the 9 ladies keep a’ dancing
and the 10 gents still try their prancing
TICK
Left- right pendulums swing hung on chains
One mouse runs up but makes no claim
He’s looking for a purpose under Heaven
⩮
but he’s rolled a five and needs a seven
Running down – no strike of one
His tail catches 3 – he is undone
Time Time Time
Hickory Dickory Dock
What happened!? Again it’s 12 o’clock!
Decades of days converge to one
The end for most but space for some
Tick – one more
Tock – one less
Tick – clock hands point a certain minute
Tock – with nothing in it
Count one coming
Count one less
Enter the final wilderness
Embrace it in all its loveliness
I got, got, got, no time to wait
I swear by the clock it’s not too late
Ω
Background
Time has always bothered me. To this day, I have never used an electronic calendar. I use a Daytimer®, a company that sells so many paper time trackers that it is still very much in business. I feel like I never have enough of something that isn’t real, but rather am mastered by a convenient human concept that I allow to enslave me. Though I don’t wear a watch, I am constantly aware of time passing and find it hard to break the stream off.
On the other hand (ha!), I can strike (ha!) all the above, because it’s about time (tee hee!) that I set (ouh!) things straight. Time is so embedded in all of us that we can’t watch (grrrruff) ourselves in any other universe.
Exploration 1: Do you believe time is real – or not? Why, in either case?
Exploration 2: What if time did not exist?
Exploration 3: Should we inquire into time’s reality? If so, why should we? If not, why?
Did you write that poem? Pretty good.
ReplyDelete1. I say to Time, "You're just a construct."
Time says, "I will bury you."
2. Time does not exist. This is what non-existence looks like.
3. Yes, we should inquire. It gives us something to do till Godot arrives.