Think of a moment in time,
See it happen and then pass,
Rewind it, speed it up and slow it down,
Turn it in your hands like a jewel
Or a relic,
Observe it through the stained glass
Of a microscope or a Church window,
Taste it with the tongue of memory—
The jasmine and vinegar
That fill to brimming the vase of history.

No matter what has happened since,
That was you; not a dream
For interpretation, not a poem
To be re-read, but you, clear as sunlight
Streaming through a dusty window,
Sunlight still, clear as the Lotus from the mud;
And I know you long to be a tailor,
To mend the hem of time, but she?
She forever travels (headed where?), the Promethean sailor.

Yes, you can catch her,
And perhaps hitch a ride
Like a critter on a mammal
That will outlive you, at least for a while;
But why not stop? Shall we together stop?
For even at rest the Earth tumbles
Through a bleeding, spinning, expanding, dank
Cosmos replete with stars—the placenta of time’s painful birth—
And your pain is the pain that neither lives nor dies, but always is.

Written on Wednesday, 6/21 at 4:50 PM