At first a picture of the
Thing is more like the thing
Itself: palm silhouettes
Against the complex blue of darkening
Rose-rimmed skies,

Not-so-distant stream of car-light,
Hesitant moon,
Houselights and bird-flecks.

We move into it,
Find it around us like life,
Except that happiness and unhappiness
Have no clear distinction.

In this life
The weather turns sensation
Into memory and memory
Is erased by repetition,

Eventually standing still
In the admirable scenery.
We are air-
Brushed so lovingly
That we are—not become part of—
The picture.

But before that, the long vanishing.
Before that, the tumbling through
Day after day.

The surf crashes
Across the rippled sand.
In a kind of desperate defiance we pick
A path, vowing better.

 

Eric Rawson’s writing has appeared in Crazyhorse, Slate, Harpur Palate, Switchback, Agni and more. His poetry collection, The Hummingbird Hour, was published October 2010.

Photo by Chris Willis