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Our cells reply as petals do –
beflowering the nervous
byways. Gusts shake
temporal memories
loose: bestrew a mind’s
street corners. If hail should
pass – it will thaw quickly as
we do. This blood tight in its
arteries second by
second taking us
to heart may be loosed
in that simple space between
two beats of thought. Nothing
lost. Spring prepares
that tender and
final passage –
gathers us (soft tendrils
that we are) back to the root.
From Equinox No 24 (September 2011)
Wild with sleep and sleeplessness
I kept losing tables, cities,
trees, churches, palaces, entire countries
Where was Egypt?
How could I have misplaced Poland?
When there was only one table left in the world,
breakfast tried to cheer everyone up –
I lost autumn,
ageless autumn, mislaid winter,
all summer I searched for spring
I stole some shadows from my one remaining forest,
some rain from El Nino
I’d appreciate your help
in snatching an hour of lost light back from the moon and stars,
but I guess that’s not going happen
in my lifetime
So much time has passed. Snow-
flakes fall round lit street lamps.
They’re falling in Glasgow
in 1948.
They’re falling in Norway
in 2004.
Would it be good for me
not to say “so much time”?
Would it be better if
I could say “I’m alive
in 1948
and I remember snow-
flakes falling round street lamps
when I was very young
in 2004”?
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