Meg Courtney Hawke: The Clockmaker

The Clockmaker

A clock built with the biggest of hands
(and the tiniest of instruments)
Its gentle tock, tock, tock warm like his deep voice
Big heart pounding like a pendulum

Her tiny feet dangling above the floor
as she rests her head on his chest
He’d ask:
Can you hear it?
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum

Oh, there it is, she’d smile,
her hand tapping the pattern
on his leg:
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum

Furrows creasing the corners of his face:
You know, everyone’s has a different tune
But she swats at him like a fly,
Shhh, I’m trying to hear

Now silence in that big old house,
decades left in the dust
a life rendered in tracing paper

Heart heavy and clocks stilled
Lonely faces at halted hours
eerie scarecrows looming,
long shadows spilt across the floor

He shows her his hands
Heavy like clay they are
still soaped and scrubbed
before coming indoors
Heavy boots clomp dust on the lino
Her clockmaker

She notices:
A carefully scribed shopping list
Meticulous notes on his daily whereabouts

Grasping at tangled threads

She tastes the rot of passing days
like warped floorboards creaking,
calling out in the night

Outbursts from the kindest of mouths
A labyrinth of loose ends

Her heart a hundred-year-old accordion
wheezing its last laboured sighs
dust on its tired cockles
A museum:
Du-dum. Du-dum. Du-dum

One box at a time

The forfeiting of estates

Neighbours whisper:

The flies are out
Things will go rotten
It doesn’t take long

But she knows
that even evergreen trees
lose their leaves sometimes

Meg Courtney Hawke