this thing called time

It was a confusion in his estimation
This thing they called time.

It was neatly divided into sixty seconds
Which made minutes.
And sixty of those made one hour.
One had to be on time for school
Right on time for bed and
Definitely on time for dinner
If by chance dinner wasn’t ready,
Then it was behind time.

In church the minutes moved so slow
They seemed to be mired knee-deep in old molasses.
But on the hill with the wind in his hair
They disappeared like ice on a hot day
Evaporating into infinity.

They marked it and celebrated it,
This thing called time
They talked about what happened a
Hundred years ago,
Even a thousand years ago
Was important to remember
Though, they grudgingly would admit
Much of it was
Conjecture and guesswork.

Try as he might,
He never took it seriously,

This thing called time

He frankly wondered that they really cared,
And why.

He laughed out loud the day his teacher
Instructed them to all go home and
Change their clocks,
Set them ahead one hour,
Because tomorrow time would change.
For the next half a year
Everyone would begin to pretend
It was an hour later.

Yep, they were making it all up
As they went along.

This thing they called time.

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