Quiet, stillness. Oh, Christ—now what
is this? A slight ticking sound,
subtle but distinctly springing
up from within this penitent little
Sunday School student—my soul! Could it
be the strangely unmusical toll
of plain truth knocking? Now—
in that eternal second between the last and
each next second, when the very unrelaxed hands
of a piebald old wall clock
seem to have become nothing less
once again than twin-imperatives,
each stiffly pointing
two very different ways to go, one long
and one short, although with strangely the same
plainness of urgency and arrowheaded emphasis—
it is obvious, for once. I have no choice
but to very soon grow
somehow—more timeless. Less bound to this
place. And as confident
as the motley ribald ocean
presently filling up each classroom window
in his own—unrepentant
wishy-washiness.