The View from East Rock (Day #17,119)
You stand at the helm of East Rock as
Though it were a ship setting sail. Your gaze
Reads the horizon like tea leaves, and,
Suddenly, you feel dwarfed by this ordinary
Sunset as if for the first time in 17,119 days.
Transfixed by the light and the longing,
You follow the ungodly caw-cawing of gulls
Gutting fish on a not-too-distant dock.
In fact, you too are restless tonight.
Or is it “restive?” You wonder about that.
And you remember wondering about
That before, and looking it up, and then
The forgetting. It seems as though forgetting
Should be harder than remembering,
Like running downhill is harder than up.
Instead, all you can track is the wind
Rushing by, carrying leaves like you once
Carried children across Mill River, and
Before that, the silence of fireflies kindling
A path up the mountain that marks our
Once-upon-a-time New Haven. One by one,
Such moments slip like pearls off a strand,
And, as you blink, the strand itself blows by.
By K. Ann Cavanaugh
© 2010