Daily Archives: March 11, 2018

2 posts

The Hubris of Daylight Savings Time

humor poetry

time

You wake up. Squint at the clock. Seven o’clock. Is that possible?

No, wait. Spring ahead. Was this clock sprung before bed?

Yes, because it’s in the bedroom. Or that was your thought last night, anyway. So six o’clock, really. And you went to bed at 11. No, make that 10. Which means you slept a total of… oh, forget about it.

Downstairs to make the Sunday morning coffee. Seems brighter than usual. Or maybe that’s just bright reflecting off the forward-March snow.

Where the hell’s the atomic clock? Or the cable box. The internet will do, too. Big Brothers, all. They have our times, all right. More than we know.

Let the spring rituals begin: Fix the clock on the microwave (quick time). Fix the clock on the stove (hot times). Where else? There’s got to be a rogue clock somewhere, holding its Eastern Standard Time hostage on the principle of it all. Maybe you’ll leave it — the revolutionary in you giving tacit sympathy to its cause.

Who invented Daylights Savings, anyhow? Why are we subjected to these insignificantly significant jolts to our inner circadian rhythms twice a year? Fall bleeping back. Spring bleeping ahead. Late to this appointment. Early to that one.

You don’t want to think about it too much, because the answer is Congressmen. Lord. Politicians! Playing politics with clocks based on their “studies” which, you’ve learned, have to be studied themselves because they’re seldom if ever true.

And this evening, the outside will look strangely different, too. All because of political hubris. All because of men playing god. The Greeks knew a thing or two about the folly of mortals getting uppity. After all, didn’t they invent the word hubris?

Case closed. Eyes closed. You need a nap. Too much thinking for today, especially considering you were robbed of an hour while you slept.

So go ahead. Dream a little. Of clock-less rooms. Of time-less worlds. Of lands where no man can wear his wealth on his wrist and call it an expensive watch. Time will take care of itself. And it will never fall or spring. It will just bide with a little smirk on its lips….

 

 

Aubades: Love Poems That Dawn On You

poetry poetry books

“Poetry doesn’t get enough mainstream attention these days. It’s a mode of engaging with the world, it feels like magic, it requires nothing of you other than a willing ear. It’s also a mode of engagement that is not argumentative, it’s full of surprise, and it’s full of grace.”

Thus spake Jia Tolentino in her video intro to a reading of Tracy K. Smith’s “Solstice,” taken from Life on Mars, the book I’ve been reading (or perhaps that’s been reading me).

The book itself is a rich nougat, much sweeter and more filling than expected. All manner of poetry is going on here, from free verse to bound forms to boundless imagination in the form of postcard missives between people.

As another example of the variety, I give you an aubade entitled, quite simply, “Aubade.” An old French form, an aubade, gets its own 2-minute podcast on Merriam-Webster. Although it looks like you’d pronounce it with a long “a,” it is, in fact, pronounced “oh-BOD.” Without further ado, here is Tracy’s love song to the morning:

 

“Aubade”
by Tracy K. Smith

You wake with a start from some dream
Asking if I want to walk with you around the block.

You go through the things that need doing
Before Monday. Six emails. A presentation on Manet.

No, I don’t want to put on clothes and shoes
And dark glasses and follow the dog and you

Down Smith Street. It’s eight o’clock. The sun
Is toying with those thick clouds and the trees

Shake their heads in the wind. You exhale,

Wheel your feet to the floor, walk around to my side
And let your back end drop down onto the bed.

You resort to the weather. A high today of 78.
But that’s hours aways. And look at the dog

Still passed out cold, twitching in a dream.

When we stop talking, we hear the soft sounds
He makes in his sleep. Not quite barking. More like

Learning to speak. As if he’s in the middle of a scene
Where he must stand before the great dog god

Trying to account for his life.

 

Mornings can get rather prosaic, as this aubade attests, making it a much easier form for poets to explore than the ghazals we found leaping around in yesterday’s post. And it feels as if the aubade isn’t done speaking, either, when we see, two poems later, Smith’s continuation of the dog theme. For what goes with mornings more than dogs?

 

“Eggs Norwegian”

by Tracy K. Smith

Give a man a stick, and he’ll hurl it at the sun
For his dog to race toward as it falls. He’ll relish
The snap in those jagged teeth, the rough breath
Sawing in and out through the craggy mouth, the clink
Of tags approaching as the dog canters back. He’ll stoop
To do it again and again, so your walk through grass
Lasts all morning, the dog tired now in the heat,
The stick now just a wet and gnarled nub that doesn’t sail
So much as drop. And when the dog plops to the grass
Like a misbegotten turd, and even you want nothing
More than a plate of eggs at some sidewalk café, the man–
Who, too, by now has dropped even the idea of fetch—
Will push you against a tree and ease his leg between
Your legs as his industrious tongue whispers
Convincingly into your mouth.

 

A stronger poem, I think, but every bit as lovely as morning, the best time of day, the most creative time of day, the time of day I need no alarm clock to greet. Speaking of days, maybe we need to discover the Norwegian word for “egg poems.”

Love, dogs, or eggs, may yours be a good one, no matter how much remains of it.