held on high

most towns and
all cities hold on high
that which we carry in our hearts
counted out on wrist watches and
cell phones
rewarded with
dollars and cents
to be paid in full for
our wishes and wants

there's something happening
this idea of time
that measuring minutes and months
somehow gives us over control that
someday, like all those that have come before,
we too will return into earth

so we lift the tools of calculation high
and mark the passing of time as if
it is a human construct, when in fact
these seconds are moments of our lives
carved into a figment

the fact that we are witness to a living
spinning planet in constant flux
creating balance between the heat of
sun and cool of space
days become a wondrous event
as each breath is but one expansion
of so many between our birth and
death

no matter how many clocks and
ways to tell time, we can only ever
know now, and now is the time.