Craftsman Of Clocks

Craftsman Of Clocks
© Surazeus
2024 12 20

Long gown whipping in cool breeze of the sea, 
Ceres strolls in field of star-golden wheat 
ten thousand years of flower-blooming dream, 
sweeping stalks of grain with delicate hands 
which agitate rich soil soaked with blue rain 
so we bake bread and cake from flour of life. 

When his clock-making business is burned down 
by gang of boys paid by more wealthy rivals, 
Heimeric Zenz loads his family and tools 
in rickety wagon he found abandoned 
in the cemetery of his ancestors, 
then leaves Ohio for the wild frontier. 

After he calculates the wagon wheels 
have spun around eight hundred thousand times, 
Heimeric stops on shore of some broad river 
on flat plain near the Rocky Mountain range, 
and builds cabin from bones of his ancestors 
which he heaped together in box of tools. 

Visiting small towns in the wild frontier, 
Heimeric applies for a loan at banks 
with plan to open his clock-making shop, 
but every clerk explains without a smile 
that time does not exist on the prairie, 
so no one needs clocks to control the time. 

Sitting by stone hearth in cabin of bones, 
covered to its roof in swirls of bright snow, 
Heimeric stares in darkness of the fire, 
in bleak despair about how he should live, 
yet King Wenceslaus driving sleigh of goods 
never appears with jingling silver bells. 

After snow melts into thick prairie soil, 
Heimeric Zenz, master craftsman of clocks, 
stands outside time under slow swirling clouds, 
and in bleak darkness of eternal dawn 
he sees tall woman with flowing sun-bright hair 
who scatters grains of wheat bright as gold coins. 

Harnessing his wagon horse with small plow, 
Heimeric tills rich soil around his home, 
then walks along versed furrows of wet dirt, 
while reaching in large bag around his shoulder, 
and sows wheat kernels with sweep of his hands 
that once constructed clocks with skilled control. 

After he gains wealth selling bags of wheat, 
Heimeric Zenz buys plot of land in Denver 
and builds the first town shop for making clocks 
which he creates with attentive respect 
till clocks tick on every mantle in town 
on the prairie where time does not exist.