Father Time; or Hello New Year

What happens to Father Time at midnight?
Does he give Baby New Year a pat on the head,
And then join all the other Father Times?
Do they all go out for drinks?
Do they share war stories?
“I had a massive earthquake in Haiti,”
Boasts Father 2010,
“a catastrophic oil spill,and the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull.”
Father 2001 laughs derisively,
And Father 1945 scowls at both of them,
shakes his head, and nurses his saki.
Or do they try to forget all that bad stuff?
Father 1512 gushes over the completion of the Sistine Chapel,
While Father 1450 explains how the printing press works.
Father 1207 recites Rumi poems and Father 1564 reenacts Shakespearean comedies.
Father 1969 remembers Woodstock (vaguely) and landing on the moon.
They celebrate all the birthdays of all the great men and women they nursed.
Or maybe they simply gab about the sex lives of princes and movie stars.

Or does Father Time give Baby New Year an awkward shrug
and then walk off into the night alone?
He’s always been alone, from the moment his Father Time bid Baby Him farewell
To the moment he bids his Baby New Year hello.
He’s probably pretty socially awkward, right?
If you put him in a room
With other Father Times
He would probably hide in the corner,
shy and nervous.
He’s known no other life
Than that of being Father Time.
What would you do
If suddenly you weren’t you?

Or does Father Time stay with Baby New Year for a spell?
He is, after all, a baby.
What kind of jerk leaves a baby to fend for himself?
Maybe Father Time stays with him until he’s old enough to take over.
Aging 75 days a day,
He’ll be 18 by April.
Maybe Father Time teaches Baby New Year
(known as Kid New Year in January,
Preteen New Year in February,
And Adolescent New Year in March)
All that he knows,
All that his Father Time taught him,
All that his Father Time had been taught
By Grandfather Time.
And so on.
By April
Father Time will be 93.
Maybe,
On Young Man New Year’s 18th birthday,
Father Time
Gives him his pocket watch,
Smiles,
And exhales.
And Young Man New Year,
Now Young Man Time,
Kisses him on the forehead,
And quietly cries,
While we celebrate the first days of spring.

Dedicated to my wife, Rachel, on the 11th anniversary of our first kiss.

Time is a; or Happy New Year.

Time is a clock with months not numbers—January where the 12 should be—running counter-clockwise. January, February, and March are spaced evenly, as are September through December; but April, May, and the summer months always become distorted, oddly blurry and rushed, like they’re slipping towards the 6 where June should be, but it always seems to be August.

Except time is not a clock because it’s a spiral. Or, rather, it is a clock on a spiral. When looked at straight on, it looks like a clock, but it’s a thin coil. A single helix.

Time is a rotary phone. When I try to remember what year we did this and what year we did that, I dial the years back with my finger.

Time is a sense of direction. Just as I know which way is north, days neither feel too long or short. The years are not slipping away any more than the planet’s poles are shifting (and yet they are). “How quickly the the weekend went,” is only a Monday-morning nicety—or a metaphor. It does not fly. It does not drag. Time is a line on a map.

Time is a memory chest with a false bottom.

Time is a novel with a narrator that looks a little like me, thinks a little like me, and yet is not me and never was me. I look on his lessons as I do the morals of Aesop’s fables.

Time is a candle in a cave, illuminating just a few steps before and a few steps behind.

Quick thoughts are all I have left.

Do not bury the truth in the facts.

Beware the articulate and the patient.

Politicians are liars. News flash. So are baseball sluggers. I mean: what the F? At least fiction is honest about its deceit . . . that’s why it gets to use “conceit” instead.

If you think you’re nauseous because you are working too hard, you might just have a cold.

When searching for an image of the Spanish Civil War or the contact information for a verlag and Germany, doing a search with Google Spain or Google Germany will open up whole new worlds.