Departures

Clock

These quiet hands, their gestures,

These circles drawn upon air.

And the whiteness of the face

That attends the unspoken.

This listening of the deaf.

Justice’s word choices in “Clock” all seem to reinforce this feeling of intangibility with regards to the clock; it is a sense of absence or vacancy. “Quiet,” “upon air,” “whiteness,” “unspoken,” “the deaf.” Contrast this with the nature of a clock itself. It is a strictly quantitative and mechanical device to measure time, hardly of the mystical nature the poem assigns to it.

Now notice the demonstrative pronouns Justice uses: “These,” “These,” and “This.” Three for three with the proximals. His use of the proximal demonstrative pronouns lends weight to the immediacy and significance of the clock. It’s not “those circles” or “those quiet hands,” he specifically uses “these” to emphasize the importance and nearness of the clock. Our lives completely revolve around the measurement of time (deadlines, appointments, schedules, etc) and using the proximals acknowledges the significance of the clock.

So, he is both emphasizing the nebulous aspect of “this” clock and the enormous significance of it. Although I know he is trying to tell us something, I’m having trouble pinning down a solid interpretation, especially one involving the chance method he said he used in writing this poem. I think the central focus of it is the conflict between the orderliness of the clock and his “chance method.”

I can’t argue that he is saying time is an enormous force looming in the background because I’m pretty sure that people are almost always aware of time in their hectic schedules. Time’s influence is not transparent, it’s definitely there and very noticeable. I really don’t have a great explanation for these elements :(