Welcome to day 26 of 31 Days of Apocalypse, Now, a month of posts about apocalypse, revelation, uncovering what’s been hidden. Each post will look at these ideas from its own vantage point, which may not obviously connect with the others, and which may only peripherally seem related. I won’t attempt to tie the posts together. They’ll all be listed here, as they are posted.
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The Displacement of Memory
Just to keep still, to wait without expecting
welcome interruption, attentive
to the sighs, cries, hums, roars beneath
what I can hear, aware of the shimmering air,
the echo of earth, the small devastation,
ordinarily unnoticed.
Just to fathom the water that cycles below,
pacing itself in geologic time,
slipping swift into consciousness
when I stop keeping it out,
as if there is a place that’s out,
as if the boundaries are real.
Just to see the entangled sanctuary:
slugs, beetles, worms, grand
alliance of fungi and roots,
mysterious subterranean stagecraft,
entire ancient cast performing their
hearts out while face down I search
my way in, my momentary hidden haven.
Just to keep still,
to refrain from remembering
all the other places:
tall blowing grasses along an inlet, blurred knobby bridges,
chained dogs, forlorn,
barely seen and entirely absorbed like breath
through smudged train windows,
place abstracted like artworks in dizzy succession;
half-obscured summers at the lake, the fresh scent of
dark lapping water, the dank scent of a seasonal cottage,
geese assailing my sister for popcorn, a missing mother;
suburbia bicycled in familiar expanding routes as time
continued to tick its milestones, as place and time
collided, conjoined, fell apart again,
landscape unhinged from memory.
Just to keep still,
relax in this place that holds me now,
that haunts my rootless moments with
elemental reminders: air, water, earth.
Photo: underground brook with reflection, Scarlet Trail, NH, 5 Nov. 2015.
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