Time

Time

In his poem “Time”, Curnow personifies time with human-like qualities. In the first four stanzas the poet gives examples of where time is seen, how time is seen and used, and what time is. It also describes the effect of time on people and objects, and with time, pretty much everything around changes. This is clearly seen in verses such as “I am […] the rust on railway lines” and “I am dust…” because rust represents the trace time leaves as it passes and dust shows the flow of time. Curnow makes the reader understand that time is everything. The poem also tries to explain the very difficult matter of what time actually is. The poet does this by stating that time is many different things, such as “I am (time) the water-race”, which can refer to a river. The reason why the poem might have used this to try to describe time is because rivers never stop flowing in one direction, same as time. In the third verse “I am the mileage recorded on the yellow signs” the author tries to compare flow of time with the yellow signs on the side of the road as you travel.

Although all the verses analyzed up to now show time as a durable thing, there are some others (“I am nine o´clock…”) that represent time as a fixed moment.

Stanzas three and four connect time with two of the five human senses. Stanza three relates time with the smell; this is seen in verses such as “I am […] the smell of the machine”. Stanza four links time with the hearing; this is reflected in verses “I am recurrent music the children hear” and “I am level noises in the remembering ear”.

Also, the poem states that time is “the Beginning and the End”. Time lets living things live, but it also kills them. Time creates any object, but it also destroys it.

Martina Barvo and Micaela Oroz Matias