Old clocks are likely to be made of wood,
with black hands, visible only by day,
since at night they sleep, sure we are sleeping too.
Whereas new clocks are nocturnal, or more accurately,
they could, like us, be up at any hour,
red, squarish numerals shining day and night
whether we are watching them or not.

Old clocks have round and unassertive faces
reminding us in somewhat general terms
in a tone that says probably you already know this
‍that in a little while it will be noon.
They don't mind showing how they're coming to this conclusion,
the long hand dragging the stubby one after it.
Or is it the other way? Whereas new clocks

treat every moment as a red letter day:
11:42 in lights, suddenly displayed,
as if from their vast imaginative resources
they had just invented this particular number
that is Now, and yet in less than a minute
they will come up with something even better --
11:43, a New World Record! Later than Ever!

Old clocks, if they weren't so deferential, might mention,
that they have seen something rather like this before.
They think in circles, seeing what they know
one way in the morning, another in the afternoon.
New clocks sigh at such imprecision.
Half past, a quarter after? No, they are keeping track,
though secretly, of milli-, nano-, attoseconds!

Old clocks find this compulsive and a bit pedantic.
Why not relax? They can hear with equanimity
the clocks in the next rooms slightly disagreeing.
They know we are clocks ourselves,
you and I, who run at such different speeds,
faster or slower, or slower and faster,
that they are amazed we stay in sight of each other.

They know no clock that fits on a shelf or end table,
or sits in a chair, can describe all that is Now:
only the Universe as a whole has succeeded there.
Yet even the poor Universe is humbled
by what is so simple it is beyond our telling:
countless are the hours that have never ended,
infinite are the hours that never were.