LIGHT ON WATER

Memory cuts up the past
sticks it back together

this the wrong way up
that the right way down

this year
to that sky

the tear away thrown away
callender that lies

here a voice
with no picture

here pictures
without voices

just the sense
of what has been

the real and yet
the not real

stranded now
in whatever year

time refusing to be
pinned down

your laughter stitched
into a burst of bird song

written upon a sky
that will be a forever

a patchwork quilt
of days

the constant writing
over what has past

a  palimpsest
of the mind.