Tanka

[petercowlam]

So time is after
All real, and life's mystery
Is a duration.

Can that mean a thousand clocks
Have sung the millennium?

[judih]

a thousand hands clap
one zen wink surrounds the hour
a picture folds in time

[Zlatko Waterman]

Nice, crisp riposte/question to your own Basho-esque observation.

While Mr. MacDonald provides an informative gloss here:

http://www.ahapoetry.com/richtank.htm

he misses the essence of what your poem captures. The "mystery", not "life", is the duration.

For me, the ticking is not the telling.


--Z