The Clockmaker's Joy

[wasellajam]

milo Wrote:

The Clockmaker's Joy


In the heat that’s dry and white like hay
the intolerable bright
of summer’s day
I like the way S1/S2 separates the rhyme and slows the pace. Strong image.

and you - a sundial trapped within it
I beckon you to come away
and slip the minute.
I love the solidity of sundial here after all the air in S1. Yes to within it/the minute. Love the idea and feel of "slip the minute", though I picture the sundial as planted.

Without the metronomic gears
to click away the passing years
without the ticking panic that it brings
without the entropy of springs
This strophe speeds by with a staccato beat, fun to read, especially in contrast to languid pace of S1/S2. Although I enjoy "entropy of springs" I'm still chewing on it, I think because I really can't grasp how entropy applies to springs even with a bit a bit of research. I just didn't want to hold off posting until it finally clicked.


we can leap up to the sky
casting off the weight of death and birth
and years that pass, the curvature of earth
can fall beneath us as we fly.
Slowing down a bit but I can feel their dream of weightlessness. I particularly like "the curvature...fly" phrase.

but

close your eyes and feel the shadows turn
and night will find you there upon the chaise
helpless to the years that churn
and turn your body into clay.
And down we go. The contrast is stark enough, I don't know that you need all that space after "but".
I love the sonics and solidity of "chaise" and enjoy chaise/churn/clay.


Look out the window now, across the lawn
across the brook across the moonlight’s chill
and cast away your fear of dawn
your premonition of the daylight
I appreciate coming back up out of the grave but nothing else really strikes me about this strophe, it's fine. I've missed a mate to "chill" but the rhymes float around to the point where it didn't bother me.

crashes
Here's where the lack of punctuation gets me. I put the "but" above down to the following line and the "crash" up to the line above it where it ruins my attempt to abandon fear. I'm doing a lot of work with those words without a payoff I can see.

Twelve groups of children gather on the hill
and burn the moon to ashes.
I haven't come to grips with the group as opposed to twelve children yet but I get the feeling that one's on me, it may click.

So I hope my ramblings help in some way, I enjoy it every time I come back. Thanks for the read and for posting it.