Significant machines, bland unsmiling faces
Surveying us all from their privileged places
The swinging pendulum of Grandad's tall clock,
the one on mam's wall with its quiet tick tock;
that measuring the time on examination day
seemingly whisking allotted hours away.
The setroom clock, Greenwich Mean Time right,
dragging through the hours of a long working night.
In the maternity hospital slowly dragging its way
to the early morning hour of my first son's birthday.
The consultant's waiting room, worried and thinking
while overlooked by their clock that's digitally blinking.
No clock at the crematorium for that timeless try
at keeping decorum to achieve a dignified goodbye.
Significant machines that turn present to past
there when you are born and there at your last.
