Don Burns

TIMEKEEPERS

Do nightjars stall time as they dine alfresco in the dark? Or does time set its shoulder to destiny's fog? An inchworm webs along branch to twig, branch to twig, stopping only at the last leaf. It all runs up and down the year touches a toe to the summer solstice, then races through the equinox to tag the winter chill. Time dances a bolero, the black notes being the richest, though it's much too late in the day to change a note in the Requiem. "You're old but useful," our three-year old son told his mother on her twenty-sixth birthday. Now, compliments are ever welcome. To be useful is to be good, but old is always touchy. Beware the barkeep calling, "Time, gentlemen."

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