Especially with Scissors

Tick, tock, have you wound the clock?

Can you take the winding way

To the end of the curving line?

Can you take it again another day?

 

Remember, the scissors.

 

Take the glass, the clear pane of glass,

And bend it gently;

Hear the sweet sound it makes;

See how different the world looks seen

Through a bended pane of glass.

 

And always, the scissors.

 

A man in a battered hat takes the ferry boat,

Pays a nickel for the ride,

Rests his heavy head in his hand

And watches over the side:

Ripples, ripples, ripples, he sees,

Glinting in the sun,

Coming and going and hiding and showing,

Changing and changing and changing.

So the meaning of water over earth

Shows itself

By glinting in the sun

And is watched by a man

In a hat.

 

Still, there are scissors.

 

Homer, living in his time, did not know

Bessie Throckmorton, although she,

Living in her time,

Knew him.

Separately, they lived;

Together, they have been dead

Some three hundred years.

 

And always, there are scissors,

Going snip, snap,

And clocks going tick, tock,

And glass sighing,

And water over earth changing,

And living people

And dead people,

So many dead people,

Always in the world,

Especially with scissors.