Seasons and Cycles
What’s in a year in a moment?
What is time?
What flows in with the surf tide?
What thoughts rise with the new day?
A year brings the birth of the sunrise
And the death of an institution
White caskets thrust into the brown earth
Bathed in roses and the cries of the living
Graduations and the threshold of the sanctuary
Separations and comings together
Illnesses and recovery
Visions on a hospital bed
Punctured with science
Watching my blood desert me
Packed boxes and
Tearful airport vistas
The joy of first steps
And the anguished hush of a final breath
I have ridden the sky on the wings
Of modern flesh
I have seen the East river
And the yellowing calm Pacific evenings
The frozen waters of the Saint Laurent
The flow of amniotic fluid
And the sweaty salt of the Caribbean Sea
Where the Malecon danced
Until the wee hours before dawn
I have aged a year and a lifetime
And not at all
The ocean hums
The heart beats
It’s all life
I have been broken and mended
I have fallen through caverns and canyons
And risen over the bluffs and into the realm of mist
I have become vision and ice.
I have become air and condensation
I have forgotten and remembered
I have played the role of cause and cure
I have aged exactly one year since the last
I am nothing but cells
In a process
I have nothing but a soul and fragments
I own nothing but footprints
I leave nothing but legacy and silence
It is chilly for springtime and
The band plays and
The brides are all smiles
We are still at war
The children of all ages blow bubbles to the wind
At the beach the women grab onto their shawls
It is dusk as they waddle through the sand toward home.
I am left alone with bottles and words and time. |