Hourglass in an Interior

On becoming forty
Among unlit candles, vessels of fruit and flowers
on the window seat, I have placed an hourglass.
Its two linked bubbles, dusty with sand,
counterpoint the clear glass, clean water
of the vase offering holly and cypress.
Each curve of glass mingles the light inside,
outside, the room, gives back reflections
in dissolving shapes.
I upturn the hourglass.
Through that tiny strait, a trickle of sand
falls, no-colour. A pyramid builds without help
of ants or slaves — merely the pull earthwards.
But this time machine is reversible, needs
only a gesture of the hand to upend it:
my hand,
the act of reaching,
the hourglass…
With that movement, I constitute a wish —
to ask nothing of time, seek no reversals,
and accept these gifts:
apples, crimson and lime;
candles, milky, blood-red or emerald;
sprigs of honesty arching from moulded clay —
pearl on one side and, on the other, purple
radiating mauve: the colours of sorrow, and healing.
The plant holds, resists, light in shapes
akin to the hourglass, angles its sensuous,
papery satin on which I would like to record
such poems as this.
By candlelight, the lip-bright
berries, those opal leaves, will make a fine sight.