The Windmills of Time: The Moving Finger Writes...

What is time...?

 

It's a circle and a spiral and a wheel within a wheel
With no end and no beginning you could hope to see or feel
And the clock's hands keep on sweeping past the minutes of its face
But the hands are stars and planets and the clock is time and space
You won't register an apple or a carnival balloon -
In fact, you can't see anything much smaller than the moon -
But the people, all the people, in an eons-long parade
As you stand aside and witness each and every part that's played
A thousand million players enter, each of trillions take the stage
Speaks their piece and makes their exit, the finger moves on down the page
But the lines it writes are canceled, it moves back and writes again
Is the story just beginning? Is it almost at an end?
Days each player has, or ages, or a century's short span
The clock becomes a spinning wheel that tangles up the strands -
And the hands somehow keep sweeping, heedless of their hopes and fears
But what point serves a century when there's no such thing as years?
Life and death have lost their meaning, just the same as youth and age
As the finger moves to cancel half a line or half a page
But that apple - damn that apple - and the carnival balloon
Time begins to spin around them and they're brighter than the moon
They're the circle, they're the spiral and the wheel within a wheel
Time and space now dance attendance in a never-ending reel
The box is at once closed and open, flowers wither, bloom, and grow
While the stars erupt in novas that ignite their newborn glow
And the clock's hands keep on sweeping, but the clock now has no face
And a trillion stars and planets dance unmarked through empty space
And the threads the wheel is spinning fray and break and knot and bind
And the tapestry it's weaving is each instant redefined
As the finger writes its story, every word it writes will change
And the plot is every instant wondrous new and wondrous strange
What is was and what was will be? Let the change the truth reveal
What is past and what is future? All is now and all is real
In the instant that you find
Time is starting to unwind
In the windmills of your mind

 

It's very simple, really...