The Girl who Loved Hourglasses

There was once a girl who loved hourglasses.
Big hourglasses, small hourglasses;
Fat and round ones, thin and tall ones.
Polished glass vessels filled with coloured sand,
Every single one of them.

There was once a girl who loved hourglasses.
Tip them over and watch
The pretty coloured sand
Trickle through pinched, wasp-waists.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Until they all run out,
One by one.

Pretend that each grain of sand
Is its own universe.
Rows and rows of sealed glass bottles
Each containing thousands and thousands of baby worlds.
Doesn’t it make you wonder?

There was once a girl who loved hourglasses,
Though she knew not why.
Why stare on and on
While tiny grains of sand
Pass through tiny passages
In enormous glass vessels
Onto a mountain of fallen grain.

Would it not be more interesting
If the sand ran backwards,
Or sideways,
Or perhaps perpendicular to everything else.

There was once a girl who loved hourglasses,
And all she ate was sand.

21 September 2002