The Brass Hands

  Posted on January 5, 2018 By

 50 Comments

As winter sets in, here is some poetic musing on the force of time and how fast it moves.  Enjoy!

Tick, tock, tick, tock
That’s the sound of the old brass clock
I breathe deeper, it chimes the hour
It has no feelings, it does not cower
I sit and grip the arm of my chair
It sits across from me with a blank stare
It has no eyes, yet I feel them there
Boring into the mask that I wear

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Time can see through me, forever it waits
I look into the face of my destiny, my fate
It has all the answers, but of course it won’t tell
It knows all of my secrets, knows them well
I remember the past as I stare at the dial
I want to set this clock back to when I was a child
But as I search on the old clock’s face
There’s no number for yesterday anyplace

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I stare at the clock, my eyes grow wide
Because of time, my loved ones died
Bring them back, I demand of the clock
It answers my order with a simple: tick, tock
Clicking the moments of my life away
They all melt together into one shaky day

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Time blows away like the desert sands
Behold the one who could stop those hands!
The thin, brass hands on the face of time
Even they look aged and worn with grime
But the clock ticks on, it cannot slow
Much like the river cannot halt its flow

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I think of my youth that this clock took away
Much too fast, I’m afraid I must say
I think of my future this clock holds in store
It stares quietly, tick tock, and nothing more
Now here I am, all alone, with the clock
Whose only words of wisdom are tick, tock, tick, tock
The World, the Universe, the great depths of space
We’re just a gone second on the clock’s old face

M.B. Henry

All photos by M.B. Henry.  For more, please visit my photo gallery. 

 

 Category: History      Tags: ,

50 Comments on “The Brass Hands”

    • Why thank you very much! You are of course welcome to reblog, I would be flattered. I’m so happy you stopped by to give it a read, and even happier you enjoyed it.

      Reply

  2. This one brought tears to my eyes. That clock has seen me through many years. I wish you were a child again too!

    Reply

  3. So beautiful and you made me feel every word. Your words are magical yet powerful and I truly enjoyed this well written piece. Hugs xo

    Reply

    • Thank you Dave! Winter was definitely a bit melancholy for me before I moved to L.A. 🙂 hope your 2018 is off to a marvelous start!

      Reply

    • Thank you! I figured a nice poem to kick off the 2018 blog would be fun. So glad you enjoyed it.

      Reply

    • Thank you very much! Time takes up a lot of the space in my brain for random thoughts 🙂 Glad you enjoyed the poem!

      Reply

    • Thank you! Its so true, yet each person experiences it in their own way too. Such a mystery, time. I’m so glad you stopped by and enjoyed the poem!

      Reply

  12. The pictures that you posted with this beautiful poem were awesome. I forgot to comment on that. I liked the winter scene so much. It looked like an ice kingdom for winter fairies!

    Reply

    • Glad you like them! I was going for a “changing seasons” kind of picture theme. Both winter scenes were captured at dad’s house during a blizzard in progress. It was a cold… cold photo shoot, but got some worthy pics out of it!

      Reply

  13. This was absolutely beautiful! Thank you for sharing and thank you for liking my post “Martin Luther King”. I appreciate your support by reading my post. I am looking forward to reading more of your fantastic posts!

    Reply

    • Why thank you! It’s been so nice going through and reading everyone’s heart-felt tributes to such a great man. Thank you for sharing yours as well!

      Reply

    • Thank you! I must admit I think about it a lot. I guess all we can do is make good use of the time we have! Glad you liked the poem!

      Reply

  15. Was high school history teacher Miami, Florida 33 years. Fav eras are post Roman Britain, Elizabethan England, Puritan Massachusetts, 1st Century Christians. Nice to meet you.

    Reply

    • Nice to meet you too! I’m looking forward to checking out more of your blog. Thanks for stopping by!

      Reply

      • Not sad in a bad way. It just made me miss the family and friends who have disappeared from this world since my clock started ticking. Nice memories though. 😍

      • Oh ok, that’s alright then 🙂 I wrote this around the time when we were preparing to lose my grandpa. Guess that came through a little.

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Quotes of the Week

“I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family – a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related – a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foreman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done – the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.”
-Abraham Lincoln

M.B. HENRY

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