Tick and Tock

Don’t strain to hear the tick and tock
Of your lifetime’s master clock;
It’s ever as silent as stealth,
Like nothing the ear has felt.

You cannot see the powerful swings
Of its time sub-shredding wings
So hastening all along,
Still blending old with young.

But you must feel the seasons so:
Nebulous nibbling fangs deployed
On skin and gut and bone and soul;
They leave back questions – scoured out voids?

Is this like the drip-drip-drip
Of a leaking measured tank
Ebbing out to full deplete?
Or some ominous beep-beep-beep
Hastening to a starry bang –
Of a bomb on a timer’s leash?

Imploding, you choose, we choose
This dying drift against the will,
Tunnel-way to Heaven-spawn youth:
Our crippling pains must birth God’s ilk!

Joe Ifah
October 7, 2013

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RUTH CARLSON!