Trace

This entry is part 22 of 93 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2011

 

Wind that moves in the tree behind the tree,
that leaves a spoor of unnameable scent
then dissipates— It’s strongest when spent
and all that remains is filament, memory:

like love that desired what the other desired
but somehow forgot its errand. Your fever breaks;
then the longer route home, blue-girdled by lake
water that bears prints of leaves fallen, still flushed.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

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4 Replies to “Trace”

  1. FEVER

    My errands get simpler now: cut marks
    On trees, branches, rocks, leaves, walls,
    wherever I know you will wind your way
    coming home. It is a long route back.

    But you will find them like those prints
    of fallen leaves mottling the lake girdling
    bluffs we run to when we retrieve lost
    memories that somehow remain clear:

    we smell them, we touch them, we feel
    them like waning fevers that stay warm
    on our flushed faces. We will not forget.
    We are condemned to remember. Always.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    07-13-11

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