Thursdays in January

Snowfall:

Do you remember the waterfall

Where water fell past your pale fingers—

When the ice flew fluid around the white of your nails—

I held a film camera—

Prismatic in zoom

I had forgotten it was black and white

The prism of our time was bent—

But we were sick and we still are

And while you stood away from me I saw—

Underneath the blister of ivy fire—water in motion

Falling like I am

and was then

Later:

and I’m still as lost,

In the alliums halfway past the marina,

In the wave lines on the ceiling of the floating building,

In Thursdays,

And still

Since sickness of the lung

Of something further away

Or of my words

I haven’t seen you,

Had some chance to lose more—

Than a self in your soil irises

But time moves on

And I begin to—

But chlorophyll and cedar

Still colour my care for you

Now:

You don’t know who you are

And if you do I wonder

(Wander back again, arbutus paper)

If there sleeps anything

That could grow to be

Something more than a memory