THE OLD DISPENSATION

The old dispensation has come again;
The placement of time has been realigned to its origin.
What was saved or conserved these last months, really,
When divisions, boundaries, and placements of time
Are all arbitrary?

Not just with Prufrock’s measuring spoons
Do I lay out and measure my life.
The egg timer’s old-styled workings,
Its affected façade of accuracy,
And, above all, its smallness of scale,
Are all for me,
To measure out my time in thimblefuls
While pouring it away elsewhere in torrents.

And so, the daylight close comes one hour earlier,
Whether measured by clock hands shoved backward,
Digital watch buttons pushed and pushed and pushed,
Or atoms of cesium arbitrarily renumerated.

Nothing is saved;
Rather, the human mind is slaved,
Enslaved to the idea that an elemental dimension
Can somehow be tweaked and bent to our convenience
And put to work, like a six-month summer CD, to earn interest.

Nothing is saved;
Rather, the human mind is slaved,
Only to be jarred out of its Platonic cave
As the human body feels the one-hour shock
Every fall anew.