Memory: the Harvest, the Torment of my Days
( from Guy Gavriel Kay)
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Alaska is the place
where time began
on a cold wind
that seeped out
from the Northern Lights
so the Intuits say.
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Then time became memory
all immutable   mosaics  broken
tiles   that are displaced
travesties that cannot
be changed   so they abide
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like stories that are mangled
torn wounds over which
scabs grow  bones
knitted in life’s winter like
time  memory  torment  harvest.
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And at the end   here
in the last house before death
I wonder  what was actually
worth saying? Keeping?
Words like grey smudges
An old page of tears.
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Beneath words  images disintegrate
photos  videos  what is dying
moribund in the ancient bondage of time?
A clock divides eternity
our tiny lives  grey moths fluttering.
Was any of it really worth it?
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So we come  to the judgeÂ
the sage the shaman  the archdruid
and ask:
what God  or mortal  or dog of stars
capricious and psychotic,
which of you made memory   or the unstartled
universe of time    why?  and as we wait
we know  in the echo of possibility
that silence will be our answer.
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Only the white stem of lavender leaving
the after image of scent
still potent as it dies. Â Â
beautiful, just beautiful
Wonderful poem, dear Kate!