|
What is time, if it is not duration?
The ancients’ measure was a shadow
on a sundial – truer proportion achieved
in the notion of seconds, minutes, and hours;
then, extrapolated to be the time-scale
of the universe, yielding anthropomorphic
symmetry of antiquity, measured
from origin as a few thousand years.
As the true age of the earth came to be assessed,
the symmetry was skewed, whereby
the period of days and nights turned into a blur
defying particularisation in succeeding
geological ages; in fact, debunking man
in the greater scheme of things, but not
one jot different in mentality, still
locked in its limitations, still evidently him.
The second, minute, hour system is based
on the diurnal cycle of the earth, where
twenty four hours is a wholesome reckoning
of the passage of a day; from this we estimate
a week as seven earth days, a month as thirty;
even if we go back to the dawn of time,
we reach a horizon, beyond which, is departure
from comfort in homemade chronometry.
Then, expect a ludicrous result in extrapolation
to measure in earth units of events in
the universe! Spontaneity in the appearance
of planets and stars the false impression
of the fantastic, when earth’s time
is used as the yardstick for intervals that would
rather be measured in the same breadth
the easy glance the eye avails of the entire sky.
In the timescale of the universe, there are units
which reckon as a day something far greater
than our day, but of the same import;
its seconds are distances to the moon and planets;
and, proportionally, in the realm of stars, a humble
scale likewise, in equivalence; galaxies
again; and the whole universe, ultimately,
in a single day; seven, the timescale of creation.
|
