Timing 2

Dependably, the computer’s out of date,
And my clever plan for change
Nothing more than faster fate
Has deigned already to arrange,

That is, the date’s set wrong,
Its omniscient power dead
Because I left it far too long
In another country, underfed,

Its knack of artificial timing gone,
Entirely without common sense,
Numbers blinking, bleak and wan—
So much for digital intelligence;

Specifically, April 1st, 2001,
When upgraded to the current time,
Is something of a long-term pun,
A kind of chronologic rhyme,

As now, one year later, it’s
2002,
But the former day still fits,
As even now it’s Sunday, too,

Though it’s April 21st—
But all I need to do
To render time well-versed
Is to join the 1st to two:

By adding twos to day and year
The world's put back in shape;
One number makes the cosmos clear,
As watches greater numbers ape:

The planet's subtle numerology,
Where incidental figures coincide,
Lets form and function both agree,
And something richer hits its stride,

So the starry correspondence
In the gears that set us straight
Is more than mere coincidence,
As sunlight and its sundials mate,

And the workings of our simple clocks
Are windows into shape and space:
As if, behind the ticks and tocks
Crouches an eternal face:

And, though a dial is just a symbol
Of what in passing time might prove,
Its arms and legs should be as nimble
As second hands behoove—

Let the laptop clock catch up to sun,
Whose hours break down ray by ray
And gain a year by adding 1,
Wiping out the mind's delay,

As easy in computerese
As it is in human days,
A matter just of changing keys,
While the deeper, mortal meaning stays.

Paris
April 21st–23rd, 2002