Enigmatic Time.
(Adapted from: A Theory for Art)
Does time move in spirals? I cannot say
With scientific nicety; but sense
Suggests it to my reason as I note
How frequently event and circumstance
Recur, almost coincidentally,
In pages of recorded history
And personal experience alike.
Most fundamental structures to be seen
Within the universe seem based upon,
Or shaped as, forms that are eliptical,
Spiral or circular: their motions, too.
Study the galaxies as they revolve;
Look at the stars and planets, see their shapes,
Observe their courses, watch them spin around
Their axes as they circle central points
Which also wheel, themselves, in time and space;
Think of small atoms and the satellites
Surrounding their concentric nuclei:
All evidence of rotiformicy
Imposed by gravitation’s influence.
(And gravity is only one result
Of pressure-waves established as time rolls
Through matter generating energy.
Without time there could be no gravity).
Can time be different from all these, since time
Itself controls the destiny of each?
Faced with exemplars universally
Distributed, I am compelled to feel
That time’s no arrow fletching to some mark
In undivergent regularity
Of linear directness, straight and true.
Time seems more a great helix, a vast coil,
Whose sprung dynamic pushes matter on
Towards some unimaginable end
As unfixed as futurity itself.
Nor seems time constant in effect. Often,
Its motion through our senses is so fast
We scarcely notice as the hours compress
To micro-moments in our consciousness;
Or else it saunters with such lethargy
Short seconds last like long months in our brains.
In times of leisured happiness, we feel
Time speed as if compelled to race towards
Some predetermined terminus; in times
Of danger, the reverse occurs as time
Appears to slow down, almost to a stop.
(These are subjective reflexes we have
To certain stimuli; yet they are real
In practicality, as Einstein shewed
Through his profoundly scientific proofs
Of cosmic time-and-space relationships).
Both pigmy-shrews and spiring sequoias
Can paint this picture metabolically;
For shrews, one day demands a myriad
Activities essential to sustain
Their livelihoods; but for the trees, one day
Is insignificant within the span
Of centuries that bridge from seed to stump.
As a result of their frenetic rate
Of living, shrews’ lives are short, a few months
At most: but trees live many decades, since
Their vital needs can slowly be acquired.
So time’s impact on shrews and trees, (no less
Than on the human mind itself), is not
Equivalent: it’s only relative.
Time is life’s last enigma, and shall be,
Until we understand what it must mean.
When we know all time’s secrets – and we shall,
When we are ready to sustain such shocks –
Then we will know the reason why we live,
(Confined in our small boats of bone and flesh),
Adrift in oceans of infinities.
