Written in March 2023: one year on.

(...sees races, eras, dates, generations,

The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together"

Walt Whitman, Kosmos)

 

 

Only fragile glass

                                   holds the cold

                                                                night's times at bay:

each star above the beech

owning its moment

                as I own mine;

 

each congruent glint a tiny rupture in time's sacred arc

a faint splinter in the black, faint

                as a memory in the night that touches you

                                as each foot of a spider caresses her web

                                as each flight of a bat grazes the garden air

 

each soft breath of light a windrift in the weft of time 

                having nor youth nor age:

                                vacant shuttles swathed with darkness

                light within light, time within time, unable to offer light

                to my dull world;

 

each diverse glim a pale schism in our present past

a fracture in the cosmos, distant

                as  the screams of war that touch you

                                as the dead baby held in a mother's arms

                                as her future with no future but the past

 

each soft breath of time a prayer in the arc of history

                having nor faith nor hope:

                                lost generations murmured in tears

                hope without hope, faith without faith, unable to accept hope

                in a fruitless war.

 

Only shattered glass

                                      holds my cold

                                                                night's prayers at bay:

each race, each generation,  

each gender, each nation, each future,

                all time, like space, inseparable together