The Grandfather Clock

Mom used to wind it when the bars hung low

-insisted on having it in all our homes.

It tolled every hour, at every temporal change

had marked every part of our lives, at every stage.

If home be where heart is than ours ticked

but I’ll go further to say that home was It’s pick.

And like some wooden giant with three golden teeth

it stood too tall, watching a house both bright and bleak.

And It darkened three hallways in three homes

and no one ever thought much of Its timeless moans…

…except the little girl, year after year.

To her that Grandfather was cheating her with a mournful jeer.

She saw that moon wax and wane

and eventually she could reach where the hidden key was lain

and she herself tried to set that Clock back

but soon realized that he had a knack…

So now to her the past was lost time

and had the Clock burned in her thigh for It’s crime.

What she didn’t know was Grandfather wasn’t wrong,

even Grandfather’s chains aren’t that long.

Home didn’t change after every new toll and wind

but just as Grandfather has, it’s something we all find.

The girl once thought destroy what destroys you

but to her greatest rival, there’s nothing she could do.