Friday's Whims of the Time Traveler 69.0: September 1st, 2007

Big Ben at Eight O'Clock
by Belinda Roddie

“Where were you when Big Benny stopped ticking?”

Asked an old Irish farmer to a lad on the street,

“They say that it’s the heart of London,

So what could’ve happened when it stopped its beat?”

 

“I was sleeping with my brother’s wife when Benny stopped ticking,”

The young rascal casually in his coarse brogue replied,

“So I suppose I wasn’t under any severe jurisdiction

If the very heart, therefore the soul, of London had died.”

 

“Where were you when Big Benny stopped ticking?”

Asked the lad to a schoolgirl aboard an Oxford headed train,

“If the song that he sings signifies time’s passing,

Does it mean there is no longer a law to the day?”

 

“I was trapped under my headmaster’s stare when Benny stopped ticking,”

The schoolgirl did answer, with her eyes to the heavens,

“And I suppose, by the duration of it, it may not be a piece of fiction

As it seemed that all was lost in the sense of minutes and seconds.”

 

“Where were you when Big Benny stopped ticking?”

Asked the schoolgirl to a lively bagpiper,

“If he cannot be heard in the empire of the sun,

Does that mean the sun cannot rise any higher?”

 

“I was honoring the soldiers when Benny stopped ticking,”

Said the bagpiper, bowing, as if top heavy with pride,

“Then, as I played our queen’s melody, without friction

Did, without Benny’s cry, come the old, warm sunrise.”

 

“Where were you when Big Benny stopped ticking?”

Asked the bagpiper to an old beggar huddled on the road,

“If his hands didn’t direct us to where we were supposed to be,

Then whose job was it to tell us where exactly to go?”

 

“I was in a damn soup kitchen when Benny stopped ticking,”

The beggar said, with a voice wise, but gruff,

“There are other hands to guide you to your destined location,

While without Ben, there is no one to polish diamonds in the rough.”

 

“Where were you when Big Benny stopped ticking?”

Asked the beggar to the Irish farmer on a grassy slope,

“If the guardian of England is laid to rest,

Who will comfort us when we are in desperate need of hope?”

 

“I was there,” said the farmer, “when Benny stopped ticking,

Aye, when he fell asleep two hours before ten,

But that song that same hour brought hope to my soul

That the heart of Big Ben, and London, will beat again.”

The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since September 1st, 2007.