The Nature of Time

From order to chaos it goes, despite our resolve.
The wall begins to crumble as soon as it’s built.

The screw starts to loosen the moment it’s fastened.
We always know what time it is, yet still don’t know

what time is. Buried under the ticking rubble lies
the chance that a deck of cards, tossed into the wind,

will land neatly in an ordered stack, arranged
deuce to ace, clubs to spades; that a mountain

will tumble itself into a wonder of Greek architecture;
that chemical soup will again zap into living cells.

The book, the blank page, the tree. Einstein died trying
to tie it all together into a Theory of Everything.

Here, where a hawk once rose on a coil of updrafts,
traffic descends majestically from the silver bridge,

and any moment now, a puff of dandelion.

       First appeared in Iodine Poetry Journal