In Absentia

 

All the stars are dead

We're living in the museum of the universe

staring at pictures of things from our past

shimmering memories

of a long extinct cosmos


But if a memory

is the size and shape of everything in the universe

is it not, then, still the universe?

And if we're too far apart

to agree on the meaning of the word 'now'

Is time, then, not irrelevant to what exists

and what does not?

To what is alive and what is dead?


The other side of the mountain does not cease to be

when we leave it

and the next range is not born

only when it comes into view

The Apache and the Iroquois

who have no word for time,

- only distance -

knew this.

Why dont we?


Ripples in the pond

do not forget the pebble being thrown

by taking so long

to reach the shore


~ So then ~

Perhaps love,

when separated by distance,

is like that

When you finally receive the words

it will be a postcard

far from home

but not separated from being

simply for having arrived too late



.McW