Of clouds and clocks

Once water allowed time to drip.
It fell from a sea wall at Changi beach
Into clear shallows where clouds of tiny black fishes
Once cast shadows on to the fine grained sand,
They sharp-darted from the edge to the centre,
To reclaim a shape that was not planned,
A form that is also formless.

My gaze has gone among the shadow and the sand.

On the sea there is a lot of man,
Taking small motorboats to Singaporean Islands,
Muscled, rowing, catching snakes,
Talking us into the torpedo room while the captain is away,
The shadow ticks, those known would be best alone.
Waiting in a damp bus shelter to wave goodbye
The drop drips, the cloud forms and has gone.

Those clouds, an undefined collection of all that they are.
No responsibility, they behave without complicity,
First commitments intangible to themselves,
Knowing the need to remain unknown
They look sharp for the darkest cluster,
All those clouds are controlled like clouds,
Those at edge cannot bear too much reality.

What is unexpected yet known now arrives with a visible tick,
Quantum and glass fiber provide the occasion,
A record of the last lot of the man who never knew that
The best clocks now behave like clouds,
Atomic fountains tossed upwards by lasers
Interrogated before gravity can have its path,
The room cools to still and time lost its weight.

The clock ticks, the cloud forms and I am gone again.