Infinity Eavesdrops
by Odin Roark

Does time know how routine it is?

Time is so long.

Nowhere to go.

Yet…

The hands of the proverbial clock
circle without pause.

Even at midnight,
ticking continues,
making its rounds
like a late night prison guard
checking our cells,
working his truncheon against the bars
of our fear.

How gradual
this consciousness of chronology.

The infant senses duration
only by feeding, sleeping, and bathing
with its simple innocence.

Soon enough…

Our growing species
makes measured time
its mantra for survival,
counting off the seconds,
minutes,
and hours against
school project scheduling,
romantic time limits,
and business deadlines.

How prescient eternity’s continuum,
allowing us to pace out the travels of our being
like beasts of burden,
calendaring life’s intervals
as if our personal spec of dust
were the last iteration of existence.

Infinity eavesdrops with a smile,
knowing man has barely begun the wayfaring experience
of matter.

Of course…

Many, checking their calendar watches, gaze tremulously at the heavens,
convinced this is it.

Even the moon grins its crescent awareness at that.