This old wooden chair,
the only wooden chair
to have accompanied
this even older,
make-shift
wooden desk,
has always
creaked
with any sudden movement.

The flame
of the gas lantern illuminates,
the green glass shade
encasing it,
The walls of this small
space have always
known a shade
of muted green but lately,
these walls seem to
glow as bright
as the first time my father
let me light the lantern.

Though that green gas lantern
has always
been used to light
up the room
it allows the eye
only a vague, green-hued silhouette  
of what is before it.

I flick my head lamp
on and adjust my eyeglasses.
My shoulders are hunched
over my drill press
and the attention
demanded by the plate
puts me in a hypnosis.
The watch
is the one
telling me what to do
and I
just happen to listen
very well.

In fact,
every time
the power surges
through the drill press
I can hear my fathers’ voice,
trying to drown out the machine,
Explaining to my younger self
what he was doing and why.

I will cherish the knowledge
and art of this craft,
that my father passed down to me,
as his father passed down to him,
and as I
will pass down to my son,
for it has taught me
an important lesson in life—
What we call “time”
Is something much different.
Real time cannot be measured in the way we try to,
It is not restricted to any certain direction or speed.
Our time is but an illusion.

While I am focused,
In the present moment,
crafting an object to measure time
in a singular-directional,
linear fashion,
I am reliving my past
every time
I step into my congested, tiny workshop
I am foreseeing my future
as I watch my son grow older,
I can envision with clarity,
what a talented craftsman he will become.

As I am creating something in my present moment.
Small, it may be,
It won’t accurately represent time
for all that it is,
but
this piece of metal is the result
of generations worth of love and passion,
it has given me the ability to see
the past,
the present,
and the future,
existing equally.

My sky is multi-faceted.
Most days I see a sweet pastel blue washed above me,
faded at the edge,
the edge, that wraps around me
yet
flat above me,
sweetly lays against the horizon,
who, as well as the sky,
changes
as often as the angle of my view.
Her range of emotion is ever expanding; from flat lines of no feeling
To icy sharp daggers of bitterness that puncture upwards
and every variant of feeling in between.
The docile nature
and ceaseless patience of the sky
keeps balance.
I adore
the beauty of their dance through time.
Gratefulness overwhelms me
for I have had the chance to witness their dance,
even for just this moment.

When the sun gracefully glides down the sky
And fades behind the horizon,
leaving breath taking streaks
of bright pink over the
plush white clouds
And hues,
of orange,  
and purple that reach out.
Before I know it, he takes my sweet sky.

I have not moved
yet my allaying sky is now transparent.
Hiding nothing from me.
Showing that he has only been a mixture of gases,
not
a strong yet sweet
patient and loving barrier to the unknown.
At night
in the absence of blinding light and false reflections
I see
that stars
are not stars
in the way I think of them during the day.
Stars
are incandescent bodies
small suns,
big ones too
I could travel to one,
it could be a place; it is a place.
I have thought of stars to simply be specs in the sky,
a small
bright spec
I could carefully capture
and take home.

How small I must be then.
Even if
I
were incandescent, I am too small to see at all.

A deeper emotion seeps in
through the pores of my skin.
An emotion that is a mix of others,
and hard to name.

As time passes
the nights come quicker,
and a feeling more intense than unsettling
lasts longer in me.
I think it has begun to soak into my bones,
it is becoming harder to forget by morning.

These days aren’t most—
the ones where I see through the illusion
of a protective, benevolent, pastel blue haze--  
And I hope they never are—

I’m sorry, I should stop thinking so much…