We woke to roosters, without being told,
To woodsmoke curling through the cold;
The body knew its own slow need—
We ate when hunger sowed its seed.

No bells divided dawn from dusk,
The farmer shucked the yellow husk,
The child ran barefoot through the hay,
And no one cared how long we’d stay.

Then came the tower, grim and tall,
Its iron face above the stall;
It spoke in hours, sharp and clear,
And something ancient disappeared.

The months were numbered, one through twelve,
No longer seasons named themselves;
The planting moon became a date,
And nature waited at the gate.

The church bell told us when to pray,
The factory whistle seized the day;
Our hands were not our own to fold—
We marched to drums our masters hold.

The clock became the god we obeyed,
Its iron voice could not be swayed;
Each hour a room without a door—
Hollow souls and nothing more.

We swallowed our meals, we hurried through love,
The stars became strangers we’d heard stories of;
Each year quicker, each moment pulled tight—
We scheduled the dawn and cancelled the night.

There was no hour left for play,
No breath that wasn’t sold away;
We hid our laughter like a crime
And spent our joy on borrowed time.

We stopped complaining, stopped our ears,
And paced in silence through the years;
The pulse that once was wild and free
Now ticked in time obsequiously.

But sometimes, late, we lift our eyes
And find the strangers in the skies;
They do not tick, they do not chime—
They burn outside the walls of time.