The Anniversary Clock

The anniversary clock on the window sill  
sparkles in the morning sun  
brass globes swing in captive orbit  
since nineteen seventy one, counting  
time's slow passing,flashes on the ceiling  
a glass mantle to keep out dust.  
Painted face and Victorian nostalgia.  
Seventeen seventy one a Saturday to recall  
this cold April ,a July day so far away.    
I must find the key rewind the spring,
another year,to sparkle in the sun.  
In the stillness of the evening    
hear the gentle click, thirty times a minute,  
the spring  twisting to and fro  
as cogs  sychronise tooth-some unison,  
Skilled  artisans in back street solitude  
cutting teeth and blowing glass.  
Forty years on the window sill,  
brass sparkling in the morning sun.