It's passed, and cast
Poem No. 751
It's passed, and cast into a cold clay mold the time was mine liquid and languid white-hot, I thought that it might sit; I was fooled— it cooled the present quickly went and was cast in the past. The heat of the moment was idly, idly spent.
In the course of a Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, one learns about the manufacturing method casting. Casting has many different forms (Die casting, sand casting, investment casting, centrifugal casting, lost foam casting, etc. etc.). All of these have some basic elements in common though: liquid metal is inserted into a mold. Then it’s cooled. The cooled metal tends to be brittle— there’s not much you can do with it once it’s been cast. It’s very hard, but it breaks easily.
…And that’s the engineering-esque context for this metaphor of time, that each moment is cast like metal being poured into a mold, and more quickly than I realize, it has hardened in the shape of the past. No longer changeable.
