Clocks and Calendars*
     or *seasons, so agelessly


Over frigid water I saw her,
with wisdom aged as ancient granite,
standing fast and fix-gazed on the strand.
Fascinated, I asked how long she had lived there:

"You invented clocks and calendars, dear,
I have just and always been here right now."

On evergreen needles, seated
in the frozen weather beating Zephyr Cove
I pondered that maxim and then I asked her,
how old was she, accordingly?

"I could never say or capture age, this phony ephemeron
that's forever every moment traded for a new one."

Upon an alpine ice sheet
vainglory pinned me to the mountain's mercy
I told her my story of mostly fortune and almost woes
why only then did I think there's no such thing as old?

"The longest lived among you passed as newborns to me,
the best lived ones had learned this, certainly."

Lady of the lake
her timeless patience sees
these curiously metered years
pointless in the joys of savored seasons,

so agelessly, her sophisticated glow
grows only more graceful
and always more gorgeous as days go