The Chime of the Grandfather Clock

Today is a day that lasts on the skin of my memories,

where the sun doesn't set until past nine and blueberry

popsicles leave stains on our flowery smocks.

Better, though, are days that fly by,

when we're too busy laughing to count the minutes

so in a blink it's bedtime, days gone, years gone.

Soon, though, both long days and short days will be gone,

burned from my mind, buried under memories,

under the hours, the seconds, the minutes.

I'll no longer remember the taste of blueberry

cobbler and vanilla ice cream churned by

my grandmother in her peach-colored smocks.

Faded and moth-eaten, stored away are my pretty smocks.

The girl who once wore them is gone,

faded like the dresses, until she was replaced by

some wrinkled old woman with misplaced memories.

But she did make the meanest blueberry

pie, slices gobled by grandchildren in minutes.

Today is a day that will be gone in minutes,

time fraying like the threads in my worn smocks,

molding like an old, forgotten blueberry,

and soon it will all just be gone.

A vanishing act, even from my memories.

I wish I could remember how these days go by.

Time ticks away and my life goes by.

Hours stay with me but lost are the minutes.

Black splotches like drunken stains on my memories,

like the stains on my old pretty smocks.

Does anyone remember these moments or are they gone?

Gobbled up like the fresh ripe blueberry.

My wrinkled hands are stained with a splotch of blueberry,

angry violet lines on the palm, remnants of a reading by

a fortune-teller. But what can she say when my life is gone?

There are no more days, no more hours, no more minutes.

The pink thread has unraveled from my very best smocks.

There will be no more memories.

I find I am gone, and the discovery tastes like a sour blueberry.

Life has unwound my memories, until all days have gone by.

All hours, seconds, minutes, and all that are left are my pretty smocks.