< I >
Day arc begins. The sunflower class gazes lovingly skyward at their fire-star teacher. The newest pupils chin-strain in awe-focused attention. Reverent but energetic, their heads smooth-turn gradually westward towards their warm reward. Their blooms are a balmy destination for sunning bees. Perfect timing, rippling into the world…  

A sage watched his plants while his plants tracked the sun
He thought that it wasn’t worth noting
that petals would right to keep facing the light
as the sun-facing side was selectively dried

So sagely inquiry was done
Until the idea could receive its refloating

A physical botanist noticed the same
He took it a logic step further
His plants were all placed and completely encased
in a darkness-bound dock for a turn of the clock

The plants kept rotating their aim
And he was the first timing rhythm observer

The more he considered, the more he was sure
He could, based on solid deduction,
with confidence say that they acted this way
Through an inner intense, sunlight following sense

And urged folks to study this more
With rigours of research and science instruction

Years later, two scientists lived in a cave
A one-month foray in spelunking
Still, noiseless and lightless, the cave was all timeless
Just like the plant dock, but encased in cave rock

Their temperature curves did not change
So humans and plants had some notes to exchange…
--

< II >
People invent fake sunlight. Industry never stops. A timeless, tiring blur of day into night. We sit, pale and caffeinated. A world blinking fluorescent and midnight grey. A modern, diurnal nightmare. Timing battles fought from the inside…

Perched aside the optic nerve
Perfect clock inside the brain
Captured sunlight through the eye
Keeps us synched to night and day
Time and time again

Crossing zones will lead to lags
Clock and earth fall out of step
Difficult to sleep or wake
Model it to count the cost
Measured sleeping debt

Scientists find many clocks
Timing marked out body-wide
Liver, kidney, stomach, skin
Hair and muscle, pancreas
All with clocks inside

Timing cues from inside out
Hormones and adrenal glands
Exercise, consuming food
Drinking, sleeping, changing mood
Moving clockwork hands

    It’s tricky, said the shiftworker
    I’m in a real to-do
    My stomach thinks it’s ten am, my liver, half past two
    My kidneys think it’s yesterday
    My muscles Monday night
    My brain in concert with the earth, keeps timing by the light
    And all I want is sugar and a quiet kiss goodnight

Stomach, head, and heart in flux
Health and safety chrono-shock
Out of synch with social norms
Shiftworkers are precious hands
Pulled around-the-clock

Invisible clocks set with sun-travel springs
A hidden existence in all living things

If now is not the time,
When will the time be right?
Why don’t we just make the time right?

We’re here, right now,
Young, dumb and in love,
So timing should not be the gap between the two of us,
Let’s live in the moment,
Right here,
Right now, and cast aside, all doubts,

For if the time is never right,
Let’s take this time for you and I.

I don’t believe in right person wrong time,
But I think with enough time we would’ve been just right.

I think, if there was more time to say more than simple “Hi’s,”
Goodbye would’ve been less painful.
And moving forward would’ve been easier than its current struggle.

There wouldn’t have been a “what could have been?”
And you wouldn’t be the ghost of senior past that haunts me like a bittersweet memory.
You would be you,
I would be me,
And we, would’ve possibly been a oui.

Delusional as it is to think that greetings would turn into romance,
I believe that had time been on my side, we would be just right,
Like puzzle pieces,
We’d be, Peter and Mj,
Tiana and Naveen
Me and you.

You make me believe in right person wrong time,
That if stars and planets aligned just right,
We could’ve been a story for the books,
That maybe, in some novel, our author does not yet want to introduce the story of us, and in due time, our prologue will end and our first chapter will begin.

That maybe, we need more character development before the age of us is to come,
That we are right.
In every timeline we are right.
It is written in the stars and set in stone that we are for each other,
But the time must be just as right as we are.

I don’t believe in right person wrong time,
But for us, I think that in time, we will be just right.

I'm a fox walking around a loaded gun.
I stare into your cold eyes,
And I don't know when to run,
As I stare into my own demise.

I'm a fox waiting around a loaded gun,
Being mocked for my cleverness and wit,
And I'm desperately trying to run,
But I can't plan the timing of it.

I'm a fox running around a loaded gun,
Didn't mean to get myself into this trick,
And as I begin to run,
I hear the gun click.

Staves and rings to make a keg,
pots full o'****, and patience aplenty,
we ain't makin' whiskey, we preparin'
black powder, the old boom behind now,

previous to this Nitro Oxy reaction
as we breathe and think Dynamite,
and steel, and germs and Jesus,
as depicted after Gutenberg
and Aldus Manutius, and
Kabir, first among sages
found by Brave AI,
at my request…
"Hermit, that yogi is my guru
who can untie this song.
A tree stands without root,
without flowers bears fruit,
praises sung without tongue,
the true teacher reveals.

Seek the bird’s, the fish’s path.
Kabir says, both are hard.
The being beyond boundaries
and beyond beyond."

And again I quote Saul Bellows,
"there is just too much to think about."

So we explode.
Imagining finishing,
still, pile all we ever learn,
all our hows and all our whys, and still

stand here staring off in space,
with no idea how long it takes
to make the sense we needed,

ever so long ago, almost a thousand years,
almost so long ago that nobody really knows,
so the clowns are sent in, as children gain ad-
vantage, as happens, on winning sides of wars,

and as that has happened, we, those children,
we are old and used up sorts of men made thus,

precept upon precept, how do we live together,
how can I learn to wish to give away my surplus,

and live within my means, by chance, no plan,
justice, made believable, that it does play fair,

the game of growing old while holding haps,
pursued while first discerned, as good to know,

it is the right of all mankind to pursue happiness,
and break it down
for storage and future reconstruction.

And when the time you’re ready,
I hope I am still available.

Can we begin again?
The clock is running down
10-year plan approaching completion
Another turn around the sun
Countdown has begun

Here's a dream, a wish, floated in the wind
Until it reaches you in a whisper

She nestled in her perch, overlooking the trees
Passers-by and aquatic rhythms of NYC

Candlelight glowing, radiating, ready to receive you
Silk stockings, black and white, perfectly see-through
And visible for only you to see

He comes to her, to celebrate and paint the town
With shades of love and romance

Leaving his perch in Dublin, traversing the sea
To finally see what's on the other side, where love resides

"We would first need to be in the same room together," he said, "in order to know."

Unless you have a freak flag hidden somewhere under that freshly-pressed shirt
We both know the world would stop spinning
The shift registered a permanent mark in the universal timeline
The time and space where love met

It's time to draw nearer, my love, burst through
And come face to face with the heart, hand, vision, passion
You've been holding within, a secret never whispered
Another life lived

Come to NYC to celebrate my turn around the sun
Move toward me, draw near, accept this love
Let's melt together and allow the world to shift

Say yes, book the flight, you're ready now
Lovesick and satisfied, seen and expressed, connected and expressing
Your truth, held and holding, want and wanting

how different
we could be
if time
didnt exist