The Measured Arc
written by: Archana Rineesh
The clock tower bell, a heavy, velvet sound,
Measures the silence where the years are drowned.
Just fifty lines to hold a hundred lives—
The way the distant lighthouse beam arrives
Across a dark and unremarkable sea,
To focus one quick glimpse of history.
We hold our past in fragments, bright and cold:
A childhood scent, a story left untold,
The faded letter kept inside a drawer,
The promise that we knew we couldn’t store.
The arc of time is always bending back;
We follow faint impressions on the track.
A laugh rings out—and suddenly the room
Is flooded with the sunshine, chasing gloom,
Of summers caught before the world was known,
When every seed of being was our own.
The present is a paper-thin domain,
A quick, bright drop connecting sun and rain.
And though the future stretches out like land,
We only ever grasp the grain of sand
That slips between the fingers, hard and fast,
And joins the silent kingdom of the past.
We are the sum of moments, swiftly flown,
A garden that the wind has oversewn
With petals lost and leaves that fiercely clung.
A song that only briefly could be sung.
So let the fifty lines now quickly cease;
The long reflection grants the heart its peace.
For what is life but a remembered tune,
A short-long poem written by the moon?
- The Measured Arc - November 26, 2025
- The Mirror Behind The Mind - July 26, 2025
