The Escarpment

There is this sense that limitations
apply, yet I cannot imagine you
without them.  As thought we are
at Eugenia Falls, my camera
pointed at the precipice, where
rock and water separate.
Tree limbs obfuscate the true peril
between top and bottom,
the distance through which water
travels before crashing into
the gorge’s floor.  Differential
erosion  is the accepted name,
though I think it happens too suddenly
to require years; that moment
when you realize that everything is
strange, the landscape altered,
the plot twisted into a thousand knots
and time’s paintbrush has covered
you with the spray of countless events,
each unique curlicue of memory
eroding the knowledge of what you
once were, how you once
celebrated each tumbling hour.