POEMS/ Ode to the Ephemeral
Ode to the Ephemeral
Keats was right!
We all write on water.
Syllables entrusted
painstaking in creation
to paper’s thin fragility
solidify our thoughts
perpetuate their truth and beauty
yet fade away.
In our fear of dying
poetry becomes unequal
to the task of promise
desire fatal to remembrance
however hard we try
to capture it in verse. Our words
surviving as shadows of our selves
can have no lasting shape.
What matters is today.
Across the woods,
crows chatter in the trees,
sharing news of nests and food
communal bulletins.
From All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010)
Keats was right!
We all write on water.
Syllables entrusted
painstaking in creation
to paper’s thin fragility
solidify our thoughts
perpetuate their truth and beauty
yet fade away.
In our fear of dying
poetry becomes unequal
to the task of promise
desire fatal to remembrance
however hard we try
to capture it in verse. Our words
surviving as shadows of our selves
can have no lasting shape.
What matters is today.
Across the woods,
crows chatter in the trees,
sharing news of nests and food
communal bulletins.
From All Roads Go Where They Will (Antrim House, 2010)
