We imagine Life sequential-
from birth until we go.
Yet, being fraught with memory,
I protest it is not so.
Our hates, our loves, our prejudice,
all build up over years.
Before we face the precipice,
we face our sum of fears.
My passionate kiss upon your neck
was learned with other lovers.
Even in the here and now
I'll speak some phrase of mother's.
Even when all my cutaneous cells
have shed and been replaced.
I continue to show the world,
what appears the selfsame face.
Every moment of my "Now"
betrays this underpinning
Only in my final breath
can I put paid to my sinning.
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 1:11 PM UTC
We imagine Life sequential-
from birth until we go.
Yet, being fraught with memory,
I protest it is not so.
Our hates, our loves, our prejudice,
all build up over years.
Before we face the precipice,
we face our sum of fears.
My passionate kiss upon your neck
was learned with other lovers.
Even in the here and now
I'll speak some phrase of mother's.
Even when all my cutaneous cells
have shed and been replaced.
I continue to show the world,
what appears the selfsame face.
Every moment of my "Now"
betrays this underpinning
Only in my final breath
can I put paid to my sinning.
A meditation on a quote from T.S. Eliot's "East Coker": "In my beginning is my end. In my end is my beginning."
Request permission to use this poem