Along the West Wind Drift

whatever versions of reality exist

might be frozen on the ice sheets,

seconds, hours, months…eons.

Time goes rigid.

Except for the passing of ships

and the sliding wind

nothing changes or moves

in the blue of perfect ice.

 

In warmer climes,

dotted with colors,

broken into fragments,

time gathers its denominations

on tree lined streets, behind fences,

in houses, in rooms, under stairs,

to be released in the daily pattern,

the ebb and flow of tides and traffic,

in rhythms of heartbeat and breath.

 

Somehow we know a unity in

the piecemeal of time’s strobe effect,

flashes of black and white on a darkroom wall

gather into this fabric of pictures.

Not the frozen blue confection,

but tenuous connections,

finding their way

through the light and dark patches

that separate us one from another.