The Watch

Sometime this year, probably because I became a little obsessed with the passage of time in my own life, I began purchasing antique watches on E-bay.  One of the watches I purchased was from a man who was selling off all of his father’s belongings; I can only assume that he had died.  It struck me as odd that the man would be selling his dad’s watch, a watch he had worn through all of World War II as a Co-pilot on a B-17 in Europe.  With the watch came it’s history (I asked all kinds of questions) and I was able to find photographs online of the actual plane, the crew, and the father.  What drove the son to sell the watch?  From that watch comes this poem … I don’t know how accurate, if at all, the story is that I tell of the watch … but …

Sifting through your life,
Those trinkets and treasures you cherished,
Each now for sale
To strangers who will perhaps wonder,
Who was this man that once lived.

Your watch still turns,
Ticking time ticking time
Ticking time away,
Oblivious to your passing
As I was to your living.

Black and white photos scattered,
Show a young man smiling.
That is not the man I knew.
That is not the man you became.
I never met this man.

When you were young,
And owned the world,
Did you feel as I do now?
Will I too grow old and embittered,
Resentful of a youth adrift in time?

I could keep your watch,
And wear it all my life,
As did you through yours.
It could be a reminder to me,
That I once had a father,
But I wont.

© 2008, Tim (P) Prendeville