Jan Gillies - Grandfather’s Time

Grandfather’s Time Jan Gillies
1. It rounded Cape Horn on a clipper ship,
Burned when a mansion caught fire.
Reborn in a watchmaker’s hands
Who poured life, and skill, and love, and time
Into something that never retired.
My grandfather’s clock has survived him,
As it did his father before.
Who first salvaged it from the ashes,
Made it a life’s work to restore.

2. As a child, I remember it loomed in the hall
Towering over my head.
But never a frightening giant,
It brought magic, and wonder, awe and amazement
Into my life instead.
The comforting rhythm of time,
And a pendulum big as the moon.
And the light in my grandfather’s eyes
As he wound it lit up the whole room.

3. Time passes, now grandpa is gone
But the clock still continues to chime
In my sister’s home in the east.
New children now wonder and gaze in amazement
At this leviathan of time.
A relic of ages gone by
And people no longer alive
Keeping memories strong - now in a song
Like the light in my grandfather’s eyes.
Tag:
My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf
So it stood ninety years on the floor.