Title: On Time, The Keeping Thereof
Fandom: Silmarillion
Challenge: Healing
Other prompt: Ekphrasis Week: Poetry, SWG August challenge Restoration and Renewal
Rating: G
Length: 1700
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zhie, Morgynleri & Runa for encouragement & sanity-checking.
The poem can be found here: The Jewel Clock.
Summary: Feanor, with his family again, having been Returned to life long since but kept from them, finds insight and a measure of healing in studying a poem Nerdanel sets him.


"Study this. Make something of it." Nerdanel set a stack of wax tablets on the table where they could be easily reached, with two of his favorite kind of stylus. Directly in front of him she put a text in a copy-frame, only the title showing above the inner place-line and the lower covering.

The Jewel Clock.

He looked up at her. She was smiling; she was also quite serious. "Finish your breakfast first," she said, kissing the top of his head, "I will be in the still-room this morning." And then she was out the door.

He ate the last few spoonfuls of his porridge, still warm in the cleverly insulated bowl, and drank the rest of his tea. Bowl and spoon went to the washing station (someone else had that chore today), and he refilled his beaker with fresh tea. It was a bit like an apprenticeship, this integrating into the family, the household, the domain as a person, a welcome, wanted person (as opposed to a tool to do a task, on sufferance or worse), but also strangers, none of them who they had been before. It seemed to be working so far.

He turned to the task she had given him, working the mechanism so the first line was revealed.

In crystal keep time's secrets, ages old

You didn't keep time in crystal, that was nonsense. Light, yes, in the right kind of crystal and the particular kind of light that could be kept that way. Now, silima interfaced with time, especially if you considered duration time, but that was a direction he did not need his thought going, just now or any time soon. On the other hand, the line was not an instruction to keep time, only time's secrets, whatever they might be, in crystal. As for the last part, were the secrets, or the crystal (or both) ages old already, or was the intent long-term storage? Storage and retrieval as well?

Feanor frowned at the line and went on to the next.

With amethysts arrest the seconds' chase

What did amethysts have to do with time? With anything, really, other than being purple and a suitable hardness for shaping and using in jewelry? He supposed that purple had a wavelength, as did all the colors of the spectrum, and regular intervals were potentially useful. It still made no particular sense that he could see. Perhaps the next line -- two, the next two went together.

Remem'bring rubies, rich as blood and cold
As snow-struck roses, sing the stars slow pace

Well. Rubies were not, in his experience, cold. Not without making them so with ice or frigid air. Rubies always felt warm to him. Any red. Red was sunrise, hearth-fire, forge-fire, metal at working-temperature, warm red cloth, red thread, red hair, his family. But above the air, between the stars, near or far, it would be cold. There would be nothing to vibrate to make friction and thus warmth. Vibration was Song (or Song was vibration). All of Eá sang, in some manner. Give the poet that: rubies could be said to sing. Even in some kind of relationship to the stars.

Here emerald eyes unclose as hours part
And moonstones wax and wane where months decay.

And back to the nonsensical. Emeralds did not have eyes to open, not even metaphorical ones. Emerald was not at all suitable for making lenses either. And moonstones most certainly did not have phases. Though, if one were to approach the puzzle in a different way... Emeralds carved as eyes, with some kind of lid that opened and closed; moonstones chosen for specific effect and then properly lit, or even just shaped to resemble Tilion's waxing and waning. There could be something in that.

A citrine sun may circle, shaped by art
Mechanical, to mark fragmented day

Well that was straightforward enough, if one was making a fanciful actual clock -- 'art mechanical' -- Citrines -- or, better, sun-stones -- what with the moonstones for the moon-phases. Perhaps it was an orrery rather than a clock. As well as a clock, both. That would be a pretty piece of engineering, especially depending on the size. Tabletop? Made to purpose base? Well it would need that in any case, but meant to be the focus of a room, a hall, a garden? Public use or private? How was its motion governed? Produced? Tuned and set? All good questions, but not to be answered just yet. There was near half the poem still to go.

To span the past and stay duration's flight

Flight. The flight of the Noldor, begun at his word, his rhetoric, his passion. Not what the poet meant, speaking of time's advance, not a people's actions; but inextricable from association with several of those words, and the underlying concept of keeping, holding, enclosing, even stopping time, paralleling the ever-tender idea of keeping, constraining, confining people. How dare they.

That was the past, for the Valar, if not for some who had never seen anything but Aman. His past, and not his present. For a long moment Feanor fought the tide of anger, fury edged in dispair, grief at himself for what his actions had done and failed to do, at Morgoth and his minions, at the very Marring of Arda and obduracy of entropy and the working of the world.

None of those feelings were of any use. Stop. Breathe, unclench jaw and neck, stiff and outstretched fingers. (Fists, he had learned too well, would be misinterpreted, assumed to be a threat, the mere appearance of which would meet with extremely unpleasant consequences. He had taught himself open hands in moments such as these. The lesson persisted, even with no overseer, no Rules of Conduct Under Judgment for Those Named Kinslayer, no parole that could be revoked. Even here, in this safe place, Nerdanel's House.) Breathe. Observe the feelings, let them pass, let the tide retreat. It did get easier; it was easier already, since Fingon and the balloon had brought him here.

Perhaps this was why Danyë had bid him make something of this poem. One part of why.

In bronze-bright flame or fountain's lapis measure

For a moment, he stared at the line, forehead furrowed. One part of his mind was running off on 'bronze-bright' ... a substance that burned cool? In the range between coal-red and beeswax-gold? Though brass was the more usual term; but brass was technically a bronze, if one considered the copper-alloy aspect as primary in the definition. Which he did[*]. So. Poets. The rest of his thought was caught on how this line possibly connected to the previous one.

Ah, it did not connect to where he had gone with stay and durance. Not directly (though it would now, whatever he made from this exercise). 'In' was the key; using a consume-mark measure (candle-mark, oil-mark) or an additive-mark (lapis in this case referring to water, a water-clock) measure, to define the length and passing of time. But water-clocks and sand-glasses and rate of burn measures were imprecise. Good for general measurement, but not fine.

Creating gemstones, cutting and shaping them, forming settings and displays and properly effective uses were very precise. Was the poet thinking of precision? Did it matter if they had been or not?

Onward now.

A precious purpose forms - nets, wrought of light

A net made of light?! What a fascinating idea!

But what did that have to do with time?

And which meaning -- or meanings -- of 'precious'? Valuable, of worth, scarce, rare, difficult to make -- a generally neutral sense; Fiddly, twee, over-complicated, over-precise in flourishes and under in key elements -- morally and possibly ethically suspect, but not necessarily at fault or actively bad; or was it 'mairon' of Sauron, Gorthaur, Annatar of poisoned gift? No one used 'mairon' in it's original meaning of neutral high value now. Other words come into being, borrowed, changed. 'Mairon' was poison now, whatever it had been once.

Not that last, Feanor was certain. This poem was not written in Quenya, had not been composed in that tongue. The gloss did not fit the placement or construction or the way it fit with the other words and concepts. Still, it would be ... prudent ... to keep that meaning in mind so as to avoid any echo.

Nets of light, though -- that deserved serious, deep thought. How to use the concept in relation to time, how to realize the idea in form.... That was a thing he would be coming back to.

Send golden hands to gather diamond treasure.

Here was another line with both practical meaning -- the yellow metal hands that revolved on the face of a regular mechanical clock, diamonds marking the divisions -- and metaphorical: hands as tools, as means to work, to make, to find and hold, whatever useful or valuable thing diamond stood for, beautiful and useful. Were the light-nets sending the hands? Or holding what they gathered?

He had a sudden image of a fine-meshed, glittering, many-sided net with small hands at each corner, reaching for stars and pebbles and gems, not unlike each of his sons (and nephews & nieces too) had done at one point or another when very young. An interesting juxtaposition. Another thing to think about.

Still minutes, hours, days & years unfold
Too-subtle gems, impossible to hold.

Oh. No matter how fine the mesh, there is no catching, keeping, holding time. Mark, observe, count, measure, but not contain, constrain, confine. That was the secret, which was no secret at all, not really. Time was, and for embodied beings, proceded in only one direction, forward. Onward. .And while moments might be gems, worth anticipating, enjoying, remembering, they could not be stopped.

He still wanted to make the - a - clock, though. And nets of light. Those definitely bore study and consideration.

Not only that, who was the poet? They had used some very interesting turns of meaning, layered understanding. What did Nerdanel think? Maedhros? Tauriel? Fingon?

Feanor reached for the stack of tablets and the stylus, to note down his thoughts, and any others that came to him as he wrote. He had that luxury now -- time and space and material to put his thoughts and ideas on something someone else could read, rather than only ever in his own head.

That someone else, even several someones else could comment on, discuss with him, work with on. No longer isolated, no longer alone. Now, and going forward. They had time.

"On Time, the keeping thereof in measurement and contemplation"

---

[*] Types of Bronze