How Time Tracks Us

Before the first rail tracks were laid down,
the sailors standardized time through chronometers
which when combined maps of the stars
guided them through all the seas of the earth.
But where the sun rose and set on the land
light was natural and the measure of labour/rest.
But with enclosure in filthy factories,
the clocks slowed down as the machines
sped up, to extract more effort
from tired innumerate workers.
Then for the upper classes
the train stations standardized time
to keep destinations in pace with each other.
This locked villages into step with the cities,
rather than steppes they used to look out on.
Wrist watches were invented for air pilots
to read the time using no hands.
We have all lived faster since.
Now our sense of time stretching
with a task is reduced by radio, the phone,
and the internet. But still,
where the human body clock
is understood it says that time is like life
-more transient that we realize.