Mark Trager
The Grandfather Clock
Mom used to wind it when the bars hung low
-insisted on having it in all our homes.
It tolls every hour, at every temporal change
has marked every part of our lives, at every stage.
If “home be where heart is” than ours ticked
but I’ll go further to say that home was It’s pick
and like some wooden giant with three golden teeth
it stood too tall, watching the bright and bleak
and It darkened three hallways in three homes
and no one ever thought much of Its timeless moans…
…except the little girl who saw it year after year
to her that Grandfather was cheating her with a mournful jeer
she saw that moon wax and wane
and soon she could reach where the hidden key was lain
and she herself tried to set that Clock back
but soon realized that he had a knack…
So to her the past was lost time
and had the Clock burned in her thigh for It’s crime
What she doesn’t know was Grandfather wasn’t wrong
even Grandfather’s chains aren’t that long
Home didn’t change after every wind
but just as Grandfather has, it’s something we all find.
The girl once thought destroy what destroys you
but to her greatest rival, there’s nothing she could do.