“I have always wondered about the leftover
energy, water rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped”
[Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), “For the Dead” 1972]
what we love persists,
a body once known remains,
a body once known remains,
hangs about,
like a veil of prophecy:
an open window moves the spirit
& all the bodies dance, voices sing
the sounds accumulate,
how moss gathers,
memory assimilates into a life.
if energy is conserved,
what happens to our vital potential
when the kinetic slumps, slows, & stops?
who’s to say that to die is to conform to friction,
might momentum simply be transferred?
(let us remain silent about ghosts.)
let the rain roll & the dark be broken
by the flash that reminds us:
night is not the end of blue,
only a temporary failure of vision.
what we love remains,
though bodies are removed
(as the rain steals the soil)
love softens all hearts
& nothing is taken
that is etched into cortex,
that settles like moss
on the northernmost
face
of a life well shared.
Twenty years ago this fall, I was introduced to her work. In that time, a book of hers has always been within arm's reach. I can't yet figure out what she did for me, but I do know I always thought I'd meet her, and now I won't. We must not put these things off when it can be helped.
ReplyDeleteThis poem in incredible, wcp. I love every line, ever phrase.