The Great Clock in the QVB

The Great Australia Clock in the Queen Victoria Building

Watching days
Turn into years,
Pass before my eyes:
Time waits for no one

A belated Happy New Year to all of my friends and readers out there. I hope 2012 will be a good year for you and everyone close to you.

Thank you to everyone who left comments and sent me emails over the New Year. I had meant to post before now but unfortunately I haven’t been feeling that well lately, so this has been my first chance to post since Christmas. I will have an update about my writing and a few other things finished soon but in the meantime I thought I‘d post a quick photo.

I took this photo inside Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building just before Christmas. The clock is called the Great Australia Clock and is one of two beautiful mechanical clocks in the QVB. It’s ten metres tall, weighs four tonnes and is decorated with 33 dioramas depicting scenes from Australia’s history.

The QVB is one of my favourite buildings in Sydney and I’ve always admired this clock, not just for its ornate beauty but particularly because the dioramas show both Aboriginal and European perspectives on our history.

I edited the photo over the New Year, while I was thinking about how quickly the year had passed and everything that had happened, both personally and globally, and I guess that was what was on my mind when I wrote the haiku. Time seems to go by so quickly these days… all we can really do is hope to make the most of it.

Photo and haiku © CJ Levinson 2011
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2 thoughts on “The Great Clock in the QVB

  1. Happy New Year, Chris. It has been a long time since we’ve talked. I do miss talking to you, and hope we can meet up online again soon. (Shucks, I’d give anything if Marcus & I could visit Australia for real some day) As it is, I go to bed really early because I get up at 4:30 AM every morning (pretty much) for work.

    You truly have a gift for haiku. I love the stuff you write. I hope you are feeling better now than when you posted this picture & haiku. Anyhow, talk to you soon.

  2. I am in love with this photo. It is amazing! The clock is such an interesting piece and you captured it beautifully. I love that it is in black and white too I think it adds to the photograph. The haiku matches the picture perfectly.

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