Your Father’s Watch

A tree falls in the forest; you hear it. 
The world doesn’t stop — pauses but moves on. 
You stop and tap the face of your father’s watch.

That was a man who knew how to fell a tree.
Where to cut, when to push, how to step aside.
A tree falls in a grove close by. You hear it strike. 

The watch has stopped. Your father is gone.
You are falling yourself, failing where he cut you.
You can’t help it. You tap the face of his broken watch.

Time moves; the watch does not.
You’ve been broken forever and have finally snapped.
A tree falls in the yard. You hear it. You are it.

The day moves forward and you do not.
The house where you grew up has lost power.
You’ve fallen in the clearing and hear nothing now
but the ghostly ticking of your father’s watch.