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‘How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway.’
                                                                  from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Looking down the dark hallway through the kitchen beyond the open back door
to the door-shaped green burst of glittering light in the garden,
her eye is captured by the threshold of ambient light.
Bright dancing circles on the grass; entrancing rings spilling onto the hall floor.

Trees stir fountains noises off . Outside a stage is set
for exits and entrances.

Filtering down the dark hallway lazy dust motes float across the dim stipples
Light dusty evidence that time passes in the hall; Alice trapped time.
But there is no glass table, no golden key, no other doors, just
a stern faced clock back against the wall avoiding the illumination of ripples.

What might have been beyond the ambient light
is always present

in each swing of the pendulum
the beat of the clock
the tick of a heart
releases the escapement
on the verge of Kairos.

© Anne Lovejoy, May 2009