Apricots

© Daniel Richard Divine 2003 Reworked  2009

Original Taken from The Apples Of Heaven

Peppercorn Park

At twelve midnight, when all is quiet and stationary

An old man aged one hundred and seventy two

Is looking at stars through his high-powered telescope

He Sits alone in his observatory, free from chaos and disorder

He’s there to govern the whole universe in which we live

And to procure and create the birth of new stars

The weather of planet Earth is one of his favourite hobbies

He pencils in a new and vibrant Spring and Summer

The pickle of Autumn and Winter can be a challenge


He owns a thousand clocks, some are digital and some mechanical

His favourite is a grandfather-clock, he has cuckoo too..

Sometimes he likes sailing on the blue of planet Newton

With his cat and mouse to keep him amused

Time-travel is of great importance for him and other such exotica

He is convinced that the arrow of time will flip one day

A time-machine is in construction sits in his workshop

His writings are controversial, before time

His book entitled The Clock That Went Backwards was a bestseller


He lives alone in his observatory and is happy in life

Balancing the books, correcting any minor mistakes

He cannot control a typhoon, or an assortment of earthquakes

There is work to be done, its his greatest love

There’s never a shortage of resources, asteroids to mine

It’s a material universe, with acres of liquid and matter

In his pocket, is a mixture of jaw-breaking atoms and comet bars

His greatest works include his theory on wormhole technology 

His writings were ground-breaking and The Guild honoured him


The curtains and cascades of the aurora are an eye-dream

It’s a mixture of solar wind and gases of the Earth’s atmosphere

Its trial and error as the appropriate mixture is unknown to him

The universe holds onto billions of wondrous stars

There’s lots of overtime, its paid for with joy and wonder

An atom machine sits there in order in the corner

It’s a mechanical piece with no fashionable electronics to fuse

It slices atoms at the twist and turn of a simple switch

Its an ancient old piece of equipment that was built to last


Time is crucial, but it can be stretched by motion

Its alignment and timing that cause this universe to balance

One millionth of a second to late and its chaos and disorder

And one simple mistake and then it’s a worldwide disaster

It cannot be concealed or fixed with one simple plaster

He opens a glass jar, with a few simple twists

Inside the jar there are thousands of glazed apricots

Each one is equal in size and there is no best-before date

He takes one and throws it out into the universe