What should we do
with this hour of infinity?
There will always be another, in time
but there will never be another
like this one now
with us here
so fragile.
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How many events took place
in order
to bring us to this collision, this
overlap
this shared silence
this moment, frozen
How many other possibilities
beyond this one
like guests in Hilbert’s hotel
oblivious to this chance meeting
drift past, waiting
shifting from option to “could have” to regret
They might all exist somewhen
but for now, we two will never know
another outcome.
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Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The murmuring crowd swirls, ebbs, parts
factions flocking from gallery to doorway
finally leaving me alone with
the interred (installed) body of the old woman: wife, mother, and grandmother
now dry with natron, wrapped in linen,
arms extended, palms on thighs,
eyelids painted with false eyes, always staring but never seeing.
Overhead, a dying light fixture
buzzing, flickering, humming
as I stare into the once-new vitrine that acts as
a surrogate coffin, yet another “final” resting place
waiting to be replaced.
How many others have stood
beneath this same electric light (it was brighter and steadier then)
gazing at this same dessicated face
within the dusty glass sarcophagus, and also wondered at their ability to touch
a capsule filled with mute history? Who else has thought those ancient lips
look like torn strips of parchment
containing stories forever untold?
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A steady pulse
becomes a single note, a drone
not so much heard, but felt; sensed, but not seen.
Could we ever be so close?
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Bits of a diminishing din
despite their intention
these patterns drift aimlessly, beginning somewhere unknown then ceasing to be
repetitious, becoming instead a series of fits and stops —
pauses and actions,
moments and timelessness,
floating before, through, and beyond.
Are they ending or just moving out of range,
dissipating or merely being replaced?
Their tragic trajectory from attack to decay
yearns to be collected and preserved,
begging to be caught, like dust in a filter
as if, along with their unique identities within a greater ambience,
they are also whispering pleas to be saved.
At least they are to these ears.
Why follow this urge to collect? What is the point of preservation?
If a tree falls in the woods, should someone record it?
Why bottle up these moments only to have them forgotten without
a guarantee of their rediscovery?
Because there is a chance
to reach across time, to touch someone
you will never meet
and let them know that they are not alone.
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Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
In the grey clearing under a canopy of pine, oak, and maple
we walked on brown needles
until crispy leaves, now forgotten by their branches, began to fall around us and
I stopped.
I had to listen.
The silent flutterings, invisible impacts melting into the undergrowth
were lost upon the bird and the lonely car off in the distance
both deaf to this momentary theater of slow motion gravity.
You kept walking, but I wasn’t alone.
Our isolation
was a ligature
connecting no-sight and no-sound:
a fragile ball of sibilating yarn unwound
within the labyrinth grooves
(dusty, sedimentary)
stretched between the things
that you never heard
and I never saw.
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Without location, these fragmentary
patterns drift among disorder
in the spaces between echo and decay.
They do not withstand a second listen,
these collected memories of significant events unseen,
but they are no less powerful.
Signals and receptors, objects motionlessly spinning,
all
clinging to the revolving stillness of forever.
Another moment has passed. Your time
is not mine,
it is hours —
an aura
to archive,
and let history
forget.
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Silence freezes time, holds it in stasis even as we feel the tiny fragments of almost-sounds that mark the abstracted moments that pass by, uncomprehended and undocumented, ripples in a pond, waves in cochlea. Continue reading
Phonomnesis 