Clocking

The impetuous fourth dimension
serves cold meals to its dwellers,
and no offer,
no bribe, no entreat
can ever buy it from its sellers.
Lucifer's own lips can't loosen
the ticking away from the tock.
The true master
has mastered
the unending hands of the clock,
and has placed that rhythm, life's
own pulse, within each mortal being.
Off they scurry,
keys turned tight,
while their own ticking is fleeing.
Pass from glance to day, season
to era, then eon and far beyond,
clocks reviewed
and recycled,
wait for the master to respond.
No other intervention can attempt
to turn the hands of each clock,
neither forward
nor in the past,
for each lives a measured walk.