The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org              2009

 

 

 

 

 A New Uncertainty

 

“Everything around me had burned

and I was coming back…”

— W.S. Merwin, from “Memory”

 

I meet myself everywhere the sea and sky

catch hazily on some dark horizon

beautiful things are dying each time we look

            our gaze changing and changing existence

how have we come to this belief in dead protein

            fingernails believe in the hard surface of walls

fingertips splinter existence upon contact just as the beast

in its bony cage of ribs splays open at mere promise

something in the flesh extends beyond complexity

what cannot be seen is more important

memories flowing an ideation of the unfixed will

            survive our sure rending from the drop

water spills into bands of universal chanting us

            the long journey over falls to death never

shriving us of our commitment to be here

riding this circuitous painful round bequest

 

Meg Withers