Natural Time

 

So here we are now – high summer, entering the second half of the year.

I'm more conscious than usual of time passing. Yellow flags flower for such a short time, the cows will move on and even ox-eye daisies last only a while.

Yet time is timeless: endless, it's the one thing that will never run out.

All the time in the world... 'Natural Time', whatever that may be.

Above all, the sun tells the time, giving warmth and growth. The daisy with its yellow disk-florets and conspicuous white rays finds its name from its sun-like appearance, literally the day's eye.

And I am watched, even as I watch, while the daisies follow the sun.

Natural time

All the time in the world

while the grass grows

I am studied heavily

by long-lashed eyes

deep in an old wise head.

 

Black and white jigsaw shapes

and hour-glass patches

naturally fit together

like settled stones in a wall.

She shifts her weight

 

waiting.  Slow side to side

swing of tail tells the time

our patterns interlock

while the grass grows

and an ox-eye daisy

 

exchanges my gaze.

Each of us a solitary face

that watches the other

as the grass goes on growing

and time passes naturally.

 

Post script – that's to say, written later, for what it's worth...

July is the seventh month and I learn that in Numerology the ox-eye daisy is associated with the number seven. From a musical point of view, I see the seventh as an interval that suggests time, existing for a moment but wanting and waiting to move on, with a past and a future.