The Oblivion

The moon was an orange globe
as it sailed its burden of clouds
over the spearhead silhouettes of treetops
as it followed us along
this ribbon of pavement that divides fields
into patchwork
(the road we travel being a thread
in the oblivion of open pastures)

In the warmth of the speeding car
you spoke
and grinned
in your manner of joking
that suggests
there is business beneath the play
and there will be no mercy here
(The idea is love but the meaning is hate)
and as you continued
I smiled to acknowledge the humour
remembering that humour covers our shame
but mocks our dignity

The ancient hands of winter branches
reached open towards the sky
awaiting the answers of Spring
their plea for disclosure
a star
in the oblivion of endless galaxies

Time Travel

As children we wish to mimic time travel
to undo our own passage
across a pathway stepping backwards
heel-over-toe

We expect the wind of our footfalls
to rush back into our bodies like a wave
the surge of our blood reversing
our fingertips light with a buoyant flood

But instead our footprints double over themselves
as if we have trampled this soft earth twice
in the same direction

The impressions of our soles
do not dissolve into the smoothness
of wet clay returning to uniformity

once transformed this energy does not retreat

Instead the earth remembers the suction
of our skin’s slippery touch
its own quick surrender to our weight
giving no allowance for erasure

Like time a distance traveled
is infinite in its existence
indefinite in its beginning