The Sunday Poem: Circadian

One of the things about conference is that you never get enough sleep. I seem to have inadvertantly acquired a mental skill, one that perhaps does not rival Dr. Bartle’s ability to rewrite his perceptions of the world around him with his mind, but is nonetheless fascinating to me. I have developed, in the last year, an extremely accurate internal alarm clock.

No matter what time zone I am in, no matter how much or little sleep I have had, when I set the alarm for a given time, I will reliably wake up exactly ten minutes before it goes off. It happened yet again today — despite the loss of an hour for daylight savings time. Right on schedule, I awaken… looked too dark to be the right time — maybe I get that wonderful chance to snuggle back under the covers and drift for a while. But no — my internal clock was right.

I am most upset at being robbed of ten minutes a day of sleep. I like sleep. One of my favorite hobbies. The method my dreams have for waking me isn’t always pleasant either — last night, it was being a detective in a TV show, and I awoke when I was shot by a suspect and written out.

Anyway, here’s the poem, written fresh this morning, still piping hot from the oven. Apologies for the puns, bonus points to anyone who spots them all. 😉

Circadian

If time is ticking and we tick off time
Then we must be madly ticking, clicking off time
In little hash marks like wrinkles, dimples,
Divots and dashes across ourselves and our minds.

If time is marching and we march through time
Then it must be March, and we push deep into time
With Savings of Daylight and diurnal/nocturnal
Shiftings of time’s defining in mind.

But if time is sleeping and we sleepwalk through time
Then we must be dreaming dozing dream logic in time
Just to awaken when clocks clack and cackle
Their shocking take on the time of our minds.

If time is precious, then I must prize this time
Spent sleeping, an hour lost just… in time.