Sundial: a birthday poem

Sundial

Life is waiting;

It’s looking forward,

Staring into the sun,

A kind of hopeful blindness

Leading you on

Until,

At some point,

When the sun has somehow

Moved about the sky,

You find yourself looking away,

Looking backwards

Towards the better prospect,

Or looking down at that inkblot,

That personalized Rorshach test,

Your slope-shouldered gnomon

Has cast at your feet, knowing
That if you block the light
You will see the shadow,

Wondering when pareidolia

Slipped into apophenia.

And you’re waiting still,
For an eternal everywhere,
For an eternal nowhere, 

Beginning to understand 
What only too soon will come

Like a gathering cloud
To eclipse your sun.