(From The Archives) An A L[a Recherche Du Temps Perdu]PHABET

     In the USA, administrations last four, maybe eight, years. 
Their impact, for better or worse, drags on for lifetimes.

Ages ambulate for years. Not Advents: four weeks, tops. 
An Afternoon drags on for days – as Act III's do, when flops.
An Attosecond…? Light takes time to make that pair of hops!*

 
     *An attosecond measures the time light takes to travel the 

widthof two hydrogen atoms, about one quintillionth of a second. 
 
Blips be brief. And as for Beats…? But fractions of a Bar.
Some thirty minutes, Bells at sea. (In class, bells fifty are.*)
Biennia engage two years, then bid an, "Au revoir."

 
     *Back in the day, the length of a typical high-school algebra 

class in minutes (though feeling far longer to some observers). 

 
The time a Candle takes to burn runs several hundred hours.
A Century…? Eight hundred thousand hours – and more -- devours. 
(The first depends on how one takes account of candlepowers.)   
 
A life spins seven Decades out – in years, three score and ten
(assuming decades ten years span): so scrawls the Psalmist's pen. 
(A Day...? In hours, twenty-four: as chimes Old Smoke’s* Big Ben.)

      *A nickname first bestowed on London due to its smog. 

The moniker persisted. 

 
Each Epoch's length's determin’d by a slew of 'ick'y stuff –
like geometr'ic's, astronom'ic's, phys'ic's... (Had enough...?) 
"Yer Era's just yer E.R.A.,"* opines the baseball buff.

     *In baseball, the average number of runs given up by a pitcher – 

his so-called earned run average – is not a measure of time at all. 

 
A Friedman marks six moons have pass'd; a Fortnight, fourteen suns. 
A February…? Eight plus twenty ('cept in leap year) runs.
Each time frame's fluid: Brubeck (Dave) took Five -- and raked in tons.
(A Femtosecond's fa-a-ar too short: the time buff femtos shuns.)
 
How long's a Generation…? Whom you quiz may well prove weighty.
Galactic years…? Since time began, far fewer've flown than eighty.* 
A Gigasecond lasts one second...times one billion, matey!
(Gestations and Gregori'n years…? Nowt…if one hails from Haiti.)

     *About 61 since the Big Bang, as the time it takes the solar system
to orbit the center of the Milky Way (which is the length of a galactic
year) measures about 225 million earth years.
 
A moment lasts a minute and a half. Thus, Half a mo
should, as a rule, last merely five and forty seconds. Go!
(Some sev’ral Heartbeats – seventy plus two – each minute fill.
There may beat more -- or way, way less – if one falls gravely ill.)
A Hectosecond takes a hundred seconds, more or less.
How many in an Hour…? Hey! You do the math. (Or guess.)
 
An Instant takes no time at all. Indictions…? Fifteen years.
An Instant’s just a snapshot of "right now" -- in, say, Algiers.
(A verse which blends ‘em both…? Perhaps a limerick of Lear’s...?)
 
A Jiffy marks the time elaps’d as light migrates one fermi.
(A fermi’s rarely read about in tomes on taxidermy.)
A Jubilee is fifteen years. (Who so explains the term…? Me!)
 
What's 4.32 billion years...? A Kalpa. (Hey! Who knew...?)
What’s 10 + 4 4/10 minutes long…? That answer’s Ke.
A ke’s Chinese. It’s sound approximates a Frenchman’s ‘bleu.’
A Kilosecond’s three halves of a ke… so there: adieu!

  
Lents last forty days. For fasting folks, those prove a strife time.
For Lunar months, slice one half day off thirty! Posed...? A knife time!
A Lustrum lasts five years. When you’re in jail, such seems a lifetime.
(The bachelor (confirm’d) spends, in the long run, zero wife time.)
 
A Month o’ Sundays…? Thirty weeks. (In tetes-a-tetes, much greater.)
A Moment ends at three half-Minutes. Nope! Not one tick later.
('M's teem. But, in the meantime...see ya later, alligator!)

The time 'tween light's turn green and cab horn's honk…? A New York second.
How longs the Night...? Depends on where on earth good souls begin it.
(A billionth of a second…? That’s a Nanosecond, i’n’it…?)

The time 'twixt your snafu and your "Oh, no!"...? An Onosecond.
(The nature of your fuck-up or faux pas can go unreckon'd.) 

Olympiads run four years long: with laurel wreaths they're fecund.

Planck time than Olympiads or moments, runs wa-a-a-ay shorter.

A length of time of three months is the span they call a Quarter.
Res satti has to do with New Year’s Day. It's Latin…sorter.
 

A lamb’s tail’s Shake may fluctuate, as many do each season.   
Semesters, too, may vary: ask your principal the reason.
If Scenes run long, play fans cry, “Wrong!” Such sin's theatric treason.

(A Scaramucci's ten days long, post which he's Drumpf displeasin.')
 
A Tatum* is the time ‘twixt tones in Art’s descending scale.
(A Trice is also very short: it ain’t no “pace de snail.”)
A "Take Two" starts once "One" departs, once "Take One"’s deem’d “No sale!” 

     *Named for jazz great Art Tatum and that pianist's lightning arpeggios.   
 
The Upper Pal’olithic Age lasts 30,000 years.
A Vamp 'til ready lasts until the buzzing in one’s ears --
plus fear of failure, nosebleed and amnesia -- disappears.

 

A While might last a Watch or two, thought w-a-ay less than a Week. 

An (e)Xasecond’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000* seconds – so to speak.

     *Pronounced "one quintillion.

Yoctoseconds…? Zeptoseconds…? Both to me be Greek.
(Exhausted I'm, so ends my rhyme...in time to take a leak.)