If the Clock had a Rooster’s Cry

by Aidan Andrew Dun

If the clock had a rooster’s cry
time would no longer fly.

Long ago he lost his wings
so the alarm he sings

Kicks-off mechanically
not lyrically

Yet the cockerel of the roofscape
gives time a softer shape.

Down-to-earth among the other birds
he hasn’t many fine words.

The simple clockwork song he’s got
is punctual, but not on the dot.

Days which began at distant cock-crow
had a pace andante-slow.

Dawn was phased from vale to vale
now Satan’s in the detail.

Time pecks impatient at brittle shell
chanticleer’s an old tale to tell:

The sun is up, that proud rooster red;
and gently the world’s out of bed.

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