Forty

A photograph of time never
has the opportunity to halt
anywhere, to linger like fog
on river or lake, like frost
on new-mown lawn, or snow
sarcophagus for a forgotten
finger of regret, that line
between two eyes longing
for retreat, as glaciers will
when footsteps of heat again
walk north, like mouths will
mouth a cannonade of words,
each clinging for just
a moment on that flicker of
events, on that color of
emotions, on that fabric
we wrap ourselves in,
adventurers forever advancing,
colonizers, world changers,
just mothers as well, just
worriers, just travelers on
this string between the womb
and one last breath somewhere
we never imagined we
would ever be.



A ineffectual attempt to capture what is expressed in the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/03/magazine/01-brown-sisters-forty-years.html?_r=0

A Too Long Novel

Black air forms rivulets
and flows down the bough of
your arm, meets the intersection
of substance and absence,
hesitates with feline grace,
trapped in that moment before
pouncing,  and exhales the way
sunlight might when introduced
to  a field of sunflowers in
August, a sheaf of wheat bleached
by its time in July, rain dissolving
into the fractions of a prism.

 
Graceless black air, ice,
void behind the fascia of eyes,
oxbow lips, the scripture of
a well-tuned cadaver, dripping
as its illusions melt.

On Watching Diana Krall In Rio

The bass player must consider
the music differently.  With
some diffidence he must view
the lyrics, free,
while he is similar to
a train constrained by the tracks
which wade through city,
cut a chasm into the drums,
trill-less in the piano’s grace.
It’s just the bass, footsteps
on a rainy November evening,
church bells on the hour,
coffee brewing before decisions
are made on a foggy morning,
the pace which never wins
the race, yet, like the timing belt
in an automobile, it is impossible
to function without.

Wednesday in Norway

Sunshine.  The being of Norway,
the concept of north and further
to go.  North.  Lemming-like.

And seeking what?  A tor.  Perhaps.
Just hatched, just stretched
into the landscape of escape.

With a Munch scream.  The
alien aspect of a sun circling
like natives of the American
plains — xenophobic to xenophobic.

With a greater weight of history
than this phallic crane ascending
from the ruins of a rejected

economic goal — the American
automobile, sedate, parked,
waiting for a passenger.

Like when we waited
in Oslo, for the subway to
arrive.  And take us.  Further
into incomprehension.

I arrived in Halifax, Canada,
so many years ago, fresh
child from Europe’s war’s

aftermath.  Chess piece.
Twenty moves from end game,
from watching the sun swirl

in a maelstrom sky. And trying
to understand that life
is not about seeking differences.

Time of Day

In the morning                  concrete
a confused seagull                           stray sunlight

lapsed sounds of night                  and
that music which

tactile is a tracery of potential
like words uttered           below the

heartbeats of hearing    with just emotion
to which to cling.

I could elevate the sun                  resuscitate
the minutes adrift like

Manatees, like spiders forever
spinning their webs.  I could

photograph  the arm time  leans in

                in a certain way

as though memory exists
and the future doesn’t      

predict         itself.