I.
1.
The poem parses time into syllables
and the syllables reach out to hold you
in the embrace of your grandmother’s words,
the light touch of motherly praise,
the squirm of a daughter’s protestations,
the first gurgling phonemes of the womb
advancing to meaning, dissolving to memory.
2.
The grandfather clock travels in grandfather time,
its tick tick ticking replacing the shadows
cast by the sun on a circular stone
that mimicked the once holy dawn ringing out
on the sway of evergreens,
the rattle of doe hooves,
every sound collecting to the center
of the pulsating green forest.
3.
The lullabies chanted to the womb
hickory dickory dock, tick tock
its way up into the time of every song
you ever sung and remembered
until its sleepy dreams replace
every still moment of waking life.
4.
The paintings in the Louvre
are all Mona Lisas and Medusa’s—
the same **** faces
with different smiles
that become petrifying
when gazed head on
but freeing apace when
converted into frame rates
that match the time and space
of your foot movements,
heartbeats and thoughts.
5.
The pandemic has reduced
the world to FaceTime,
apart in space, time and touch:
the voice, the echoing of electrons,
the face, replaced by the screen image,
the same **** faces again without depth,
permitting no movement beyond
the camera’s border, no past or future,
just a present looped and memed ad infinitum
without a song to sing,
no dancing cheek to cheek,
until denied the reality of human time
neither of you can sustain a relationship
within the movement of this thing.
II.
1.
Now your world exists
in the untouchable,
in shutdown,
in stopped time,
just a still life hung on the wall,
that you can only gaze at
but dare not touch
lest violence erupt.
2.
Everything is gone
in the flicker of an eye.
The black bird
with the yellow underwings
speeds by in a golden flash
until it vanishes into the forest.
III.
1.
And you are left
with the memory
of your grandmother’s embrace
singing only to you.
2.
It was holy, holy, holy,
a divine person,
a hymn,
a double beat
of syllables
seeding first into the earth
and then into you.
3.
You develop bifocular vision,
seeing not only
everything near and far
but all that is above and below
the soul’s watery movements.
IV.
1.
You remember the first time
you saw the goddess
rising half from
the water and the sky,
dancing and singing
on the shore.
2.
Now, everything is painted
with the white clay
of her existence.
3.
Syllable by syllable her song
becomes your poetry,
a repeating chant
that entrances you
until your joy
passes beyond time,
to become the only
thing that matters.
4.
Her love allows you
to touch those things
that can never be touched
without the risk of infection.
5.
The poems written
enter through
the eye and ear
and touch the heart
of the world.
V.
1.
On your last walk
a green snake
undulates in S curves
on the trail in front.
2.
In the hiss
you hear no threat,
only love
that acquiesces
to allowing you
to touch its back,
until it straightens
itself out .
3.
In that moment
time un-wrinkles.