8 O' Clock

Housman wrote most of his poems almost a century ago. He was a late booming scholar and a poet. Even publisher didn’t publish his poems early in his career. In his own expense he wrote and published some good poems. He became renowned poet after few years. Just like his popularity, it took me years to convine myself that his poem ‘8 O’ Clock’ was worth a mention. It is not an average poem as it may look at first.   

I read this poem first in one of the English class in RR college in Nepal. It took me few years to like it. Only a thirsty man knows the value of water. I had to experience the time to finally understand it. Experience offers a total difference, give rise to absolute wisdom to human beings. Experience changes a carpenter to Christ, a prodigal prince to Buddha, a lazy wife-abused guy to Socrates and an average Joe to ‘Sidhhartha’. And verily, all these experiences are measured in real time. Real time in the sense that: there is no before and after, past or future. The understanding of truth cannot be derived from imagination and its by products, it is the absolute study of reality. Anything created by mind is suspicious and its not absolute real.

Time is a very tricky subject and everything in this world is governed by time. Out of this world, of fantasy or spirituality, of dreams, of heaven, of God… whatever people may call, they want to describe their imagination/conviction/belief/aspiration/salvation as ‘beyond time and space’. I have tried to grasp that concept for a decade now, and yet, I have no good reason to believe such thing. I can’t simply comprehend it. People using phrases such as ‘beyond time and space’ are either stupid or fraud or phony like Indian guru who uses terms like ‘Nirbikalpa Samadhi’ or ‘mindless mind’ or ‘seventh sense’.

Without time, and without its concepts, nothing exists. Time is ultimate reality. Time is unstoppable and inevitable. ‘Before’ and ‘after’ are insignificant worlds when used with ‘time’. A bird know when its morning, a poet writes when birds start chirping, a lover knows the value of a pitch dark night, a poor soul knows when to cry for God. Only essential truth about time is: time means different things to different people and everything except time itself, give  significance to time, counts the clock, and stories it with magnificence and glory.

A man strapped and noosed, standing on the platform, welcomes a morning, hears the bird chirps listens to the bell ring in the clock tower by the church, and curse his luck, wished he was not born, perhaps makes his last stand with God, because it is not the same morning for him as for the many wandering in the market that day. One, Two, Three… Tick… Tick… Tick…he counts. For him, every second tightens the rope around his neck; every tick… tick …counts his last breath. It is 8 O’ Clock, his execution hour. Clock struck 8 O’ Clock. It is inevitable. It is the destiny.

Have we not noticed that when we are waiting for someone, a minute seems like a century? In pain and agony, second seems like an era? Just in contrast, if we have pleasure we don’t notice decades go by whistling. It is our experience that defines time, not the other way around. However, it seems to us that sometimes time comes unexpected, it strikes bell prematurely. But if we are ripe enough, we can pluck the fruit of sweetness of time and enjoy the bliss. Then ‘8 0’ Clock’ would means a completely different. Acceptance of destiny makes us ripe and wise and healthy and it negates all possible adversities of the coming days.

September 11, 2012