Thanks Max -here we have this daft system -we should keep summertime around
the year -soon we are plunged into darkness in late afternoon very
depressing -bring back double summer time !!
Cheers Patrick

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 12 October 2011 05:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: snap: daylight saving

 
  Daylight Saving

- though an annual event
for many years now,
still agitates my mind
fitfully, bafflingly.

It marks the end of winter -
a feelgood moment.
It stops the sunrise
that's been getting earlier

from waking us before we'd like,
or does this for a month or so.
It adds an hour of light
to our evenings, and that's good.

It brings back to me my first
summer in Scotland
back in the sixties:
to be outside long after

the evening meal and so
much is happening!
Golfers on the links
dawdling along when

bedtime is on others' mind!
But that's a function 
of the northern latitude.
Or, of course the southern

also when it's summer 
down Dunedin way.
I'd often wonder how
I'd cope near the Pole

at midsummer when
the sun never sets
but circles totally
disrupting one's

sleep patterns.
Worse of course midwinter.
OK, what happens
that first Sunday when

you wake thinking
have the clocks been changed?
and those not changed
you now must see to

all around the house,
and even in the car.
Forward or back?
The words tremble slightly

in the mind juggling
sense of time with
direction and space.
An hour has vanished

taken from us in the dark,
not to be returned
till daylight saving
ends. Strange rendezvous!

Maybe see if the morning
paper on the front page
runs a story with diagrams
of clock-faces. Or -

turn on the radio
dumbly following what they say.
The dogs can't tell the time
but their empty stomachs

regularly begin to insist,
from early dawn to daybreak:
where is breakfast?
I tell myself today's

the day when they're tricked.
They're not stirring at six
when I'd rather not be stirred.
It's seven - a better time

to start. This makes rising
easier, dressing's somewhat
less stiff with them at my feet,
shuffling down the passage

to the computer and its inbox.
That time-strip top-right?
Will it have shifted by itself
or is it needing my adjustment?

Glancing at it puzzled,
looking away baffled. Which way
is it meant to go?
Don't I have a feel

for what time it probably is now?
This has been lost in the shift.
(I think of those corny folk
who say Time for our first drink,

sun's below the yardarm.)
Dogs think, it's light now,
it has to be breakfast time.
I let them out the back,

where the birds are keeping
their regular hours, chirping
morning music. How could
they not be on time?

Back come the dogs, reliable
as clockwork, if only
daylight saving wasn't on.
I'll go with the flow.

And follow the radio.
 

     Max Richards, 
adjusting in Melbourne


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