"I will surely bless you, and I will surely
multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven,
and as the sand that is on the seashore."
- Genesis 22: 17
My mother whispered story after story into my ear
at bedtime. In each of them, a king on a sick bed,
in a stupor. The quest to find a cure or break
a spell.
Except for a few images of my childhood home yellowing
in a box, I have nothing left. Either fire ate them,
or water swallowed them whole.
The pictures persist, though. Cunning shapes
crocheted into curtains— hearts and deer, lovers
touching hands; flowers massed on the mantel.
Burned as if with solar flames through a stencil,
heat magnified to render a wound on wood, cork,
or leather.
In one tale, the task is to gather: a thousand pearls
from the forest floor, grains flung from a sack.
A sieve to cup the water as it did when whole.
In another, entire kingdoms need to be roused
from sleep— the last one to taste honey on her lips
is the one you must kiss.
I know that time exists by the radiance it extracts
as it spools: days into each other, days into months,
months into years like brambles.
And its speed is relative— relative to distance,
to the way you inhabit a moment or want to flee
in search of a new hiding place; or finally,
to the knowledge there is nothing to do but
hold still.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
