Time by Allen Curnow

I am the nor'west air nosing among the pines

I am the water-race and the rust on railway lines

I am the mileage recorded on yellow signs.

I am dust, I am distance, I am lupins back of the beach

I am the sums sole-charge teachers teach

I am cows called to milking and the magpie's screech,

I am nine o'clock in the morning when the office is clean

I am the slap of the belting and the smell of the machine

I am the place in the park where the lovers are seen.

I am recurrent music the children hear

I am level noises in the remembering ear

I am the sawmill and the passionate second gear.

I, Time, am all these, yet these exist

Among my mountainous fabrics like a mist,

So do they the measurable world resist.

I, Time, call down, condense, confer,

On the willing memory the shapes these were:

I, more than your concious carrier,

Am island, am sea, am father, farm, and friend,

Though I am here all things my coming attend;

I am, you have heard it, the Beginning and the End.

Story
In this poem, the speaker is time, and it's main point it is trying to convey is how human's time on earth is fleeting, and they should be more aware of their little time.

Tone
The tone throughout is very arrogant and grandiose. Often commanding, for example in the final line. Yet it is also playful and riddling. As it is full of paradoxes.

Deeper Meaning
This poem is trying to make us step outside our normal view point of the world. How life is actually very insignificant, and your time is fleeting so are the thigns we do in our day to day lives really that important?

Structure
The first four stanzas creates a persona and explains who time is. However, after the first four stanzas it shifts to become more thickly punctuated and more strict in nature and insisted.