French Republican Time

It’s not a deep fixity
with all that is shiny
that has led us here

but rather a dare that
you couldn’t recreate the
calendar that threatened

to revolutionize the future
by refertilising us in the
past. Autumn and winter,

with its strawflower, harrow,
medlar, flint, butcher’s broom
and common fumitory

we got through OK, but it was
when Germinal, Floréal, Prairial
hoved into view, that’s when

time stopped again; you declared
yourself a basket of gold into
which all I could do was

put my reverence and desire
and then wait for the next
greatest complementary day.