Pale-faced beneath twilight’s awning, shadowed time skips
A beat measured in dust motes and attic silence;
Frameless ether holds its breath and portrait likenesses
Swivel eyes right, suspended between the minute and the hour;
In sequence, Whittington’s chiming sepia tones wring out
A tulip of port and one last cigar from drapery long hung;
As floral meanders unwind from a walnut casing
Inlayed with the gamine whimsies of our cherried youth.
‘At the beginning of time the clock struck one
Then dropped the dew and the clock struck two
From the dew grew a tree and the clock struck three
The tree made a door and the clock struck four
Man came alive and the clock struck five
Count not, waste not the years on the clock
Behold I stand at the door and knock.‘
- Eric Lomax