how does a tick turn into a tock
forty-three thousand two hundred times a day?
does it know how to walk, talk, learn, laugh, and leap,
or does it only know not to stay?

is it the gears within, grinding with grit
or the pendulum’s beautiful sway?
is it the springs that are sprung, abruptly undone
that kick the seconds away?

is time just a thought, on the surface of naught
and the clock just a rhythmic display?
a heartless dimension, one of invention
no care for the world at bay

or is every tick that makes it to tock
a reminder that life if okay?