ELECTRIC DAISY

I have an old plug-in electric wall clock.

It’s almost as old as I am, the two of us having settled comfortably into our vintage years.

It’s from a happier time for wall clocks;
a time when no time was told without a wall clock.

Every kitchen everywhere had one and our kitchen, like every other kitchen, was Mission Control. The clock was a prime mover; a second mother, both watcher and watched. Each second, the pointing hand tripped its advance; every jolting tick, another stroke of the scythe counting down the seconds to the day’s launch . . . 10 – 9 – 8 . . . . . . 3 – 2 – 1 . .

“Go to School”

There is a fractional pause when checking time; a pause between recognition and comprehension, between where the hands are and what they represent.

The face must be read, as with any encounter, be it lover or stranger.

And though it may be an easy read, honed through great familiarity,
still it wants the moment.

It is, in its way, a mild flirtation; the clock’s face coyly withholding.

There’s a certain intimacy to it all isn’t there.

Face to face, mutually attentive to the here and the now.
We grasp time as the clock gathers purpose.

This clock, my clock, looks like a bright plastic daisy; white petals surrounding a sunny yellow bloom, an electric cord acting as an impossibly long, impossibly fragile stem.

It does a pretty good job of telling time though I barely use it for that purpose anymore. And yet I still throw it the occasional look; there is an enduring attraction.

At one point I thought my clock had run its course; an uncomfortable hum having developed somewhere deep in its acrylic blossom, as if to complain of its labors; perpetually crossing the finish line of an uncontested race.

But a drop of oil quieted its complaint; a drop of oil and a little light surgery.

A toothpick to clear some dust and gunk from the gears and it’s as good as it’s going to get.

The fact is . . .
It was never perfect.
It was always a little slow; losing time as it accumulated the hours.

For a while, an imperfect mental note made up for the imperfect timekeeping.
But finally, as we approach separate time zones, I feel the need to act.
I can no longer tolerate the distance between us.

Behind its back, I gently roll the stem between my fingers, setting things right
for the time being.

For the time being, we are once again in unison; 1:1

I could pull the plug; put it to sleep; relieve it of its labors and its painful redundancy. But that seems unnecessarily cruel; to rob it of its raison d’etre.

It also seems manifestly unnecessary.
Time alone will accomplish the deed.

I suspect its wearing out has more to do with the accumulated corrections than with the actual keeping of time but either way this clock has never been a stickler for accuracy.

A Flower Power relic of the free spirited ’60s
perhaps this clock does not overvalue conformity.
Maybe it likes being a clock but doesn’t love it.
Or maybe, like time itself, it is simply indifferent.

There is something in its cheerful looks and laissez-faire attitude toward timekeeping that I find appealing.

Which may explain why I keep this plug-in electric daisy;
not because its function binds me to the present,
but because its charm ties me to the past.

Its delightful face, so familiar and so dear to me.
For us, keeping time has lost purpose.

It has been a slow reversal of form and function spanning decades;
seconds became hours,
years become days.

Someday,
when all the ticking stops,
what will remain?

This face,
perhaps in the background of a photograph
of a cat
or a dog
or a parent

No longer chasing time
but at long last
captured.