I am the connection between yesterday and today
in this universe (call it mine)
I am the Timepiece.
I seek no broader observations and assumptions
am untouched by the wider scope (the social).
At this center of myself
time is simplicity.
Zero.

As an inmate on this prison compound
I may be deemed irrelevant, dead even
But aren’t all of us
in some way
when taken out of context?

Consider the Other:
a squirrel that lives on this compound
fed by the inmates,
its lifespan drastically shorter than mine:
the squirrel today is not the same one
I saw years ago
when I first was brought here.
Define that as biological continuity.

It may not be a matter of lifespans,
the squirrel too is the center of some universe
its generations live and die
shorter than ours
like me it is its own Timepiece
our time irrelevant to its survival,
of no consequence to
any of it:
the birds,
the flowers that bloom irreverently
by the walkways,
the trees casting their noontime shade.

In which context then
is there Meaning?
Were I to be able to scuttle up a tree bushytailed
or take wings and fly
or yield my blossoms to the sun
would anything change?

The Now is eternal.
The Eternal is Now.

I own nothing and measure nothing.
This place as timeless as a tomb.
My own biology ticks away
irrelevant and irreverent.
What is there to hope for,
more minutes on the clock?
Why
when all of it is slipping softly away
regardless.

Now is Eternal
Eternity is Now.
There is no time and no being and no space
only our illusion
and/or the squirrel’s.

2023