It comes back in the framework of an ache
New to the knee though you’ve had no injury
Stretching and the gap closes instantly
Between confidence and a death you’ve seen already
It’s not a ghost which keeps you up at night
It’s certainty any telltale pain appearing suddenly
The ghost is your memory, incomplete, waiting
The last memory that it comes back.
A cloud’s shadow slid down the side
Of the mountain and onto the lake.
The darkened depths gave it a body.
A child treading water breathing in
A gulp gave it a voice. A father charging
Into the water gave it direction. A second
Of sun gone missing for all of us
Gave it witnesses. Nobody looked up
And saw the cloud, which never looked down.
There is a door at the end of the moment.
At your signal everything you know pushes against it
and it is not enough
and when your knowledge comes back to you
shaken, injured by the force of your will
that is fear. Do not pretend you fear the unknown.
What you know has suffered and the damage
is what you feel. You must take them back
in your arms and understand them again
as if you never knew these things
and in a moment’s time the door
will be behind you
We foresee our deaths
sacrifice the days one after the other to a slow motion panic
believing if we are senseless in a consistent and calm manner
that we can’t be blamed for not being ready for the only thing
we knew was coming
If time moves in a wave then behind us
foams a wake of wasted moments wasted the moment
we look back given up to the future day that never asked for sacrifice
and that never arrives
and if it did would never be any longer than a wasted day
How is it that giving up on a dream translates always
in any language into not doing something we could do
today in the wakeful world right now instead
we plant the sharp end and open slowly the gorgeous umbrella
of panic beneath the sun of death
