You used to be a mission bell, measured clangs at hour's half, flailing gongs inside the steeple of the pyre-high synapse.
In the morning you would wail and creak, your brass-elastic moan took turns to mark the mealtime break and seek the salvage of the summer's burns.
The click of second hands insisted strides to tread the toil in time; the minute-slither hoisted tides to bend your choral waves to rhyme.
And sea-salt shock of ocean's freeze to tease your toes meant little more than empty deeds to feign your hunt for keys to unlock hidden doors.
When Earth stood still and turned to you, alone and shrugging, burned for you, to know which way to turn for you, to wonder when you'd chime in tune,
you closed your eyes and fled the sky and crashed into the ground to die, with shards of chords and tones you sang, refusing evermore to lie.
For time's a fleeting whim in wind when fires grow too bored to scorch, when flocks prefer the south to north, when old men pace on half a porch,
when rugged stones are smoothed by river flows and ancient tallowbeds, your moments, ticks and tocks and bells won't spare one wink for sleepyheads.
So sleep to dream, through smiles lie; smash every clock and lullaby.
Your timing's never what it seems. The mission bells will always sing.
