POEMS/ Looking Back
Looking Back
We Long to repossess our lives’ epiphanies,
to recreate our first encounter
with Chartre’s brilliant blue,
stand again beneath the Parthenon,
or climb Mt. Washington
on a perfect day,
but looking back is dangerous,
its joys paired with pain:
a long, last walk in a house
we loved and had to leave,
footsteps echoing through silent, empty rooms,
a laugh that sounds like some
we held dear, now gone.
So Lot’s wife, looking back, was turned to salt.
All Roads Go Where They Will, 2010
We Long to repossess our lives’ epiphanies,
to recreate our first encounter
with Chartre’s brilliant blue,
stand again beneath the Parthenon,
or climb Mt. Washington
on a perfect day,
but looking back is dangerous,
its joys paired with pain:
a long, last walk in a house
we loved and had to leave,
footsteps echoing through silent, empty rooms,
a laugh that sounds like some
we held dear, now gone.
So Lot’s wife, looking back, was turned to salt.
All Roads Go Where They Will, 2010