Clock

They were traditional
retirement gifts.
Perhaps the first time
one was given in irony,
an employer with a quirky sense of humour.
But then it caught on and became the norm.

I was a small child,
only four years old
when one was given
to my father.
It was brown
all brown
with a glass front
and cream numbers and fingers.
It sat dismally on our mantelpiece
ticking away morosely
long after his death.

As I child growing up I used
the glass as a mirror,
a smiling face, a funny face,
a gurning face or a frown,
my faces livened it up a bit.

I thought I would leave it behind
when my mother died
it’s ticks and rocks seemed to slow
in sadness at the parting,
a parting as hard as that
from a lover.
Too hard.

So it’s with me still
sitting there looking morose
and releasing a memory
with every tick
and tock.

https://sparksofcalliope.com/2024/07/27/two-poems-by-lynn-white-4/