“The past is inevitable” —Delmore Schwartz, Poet
I’d Never Thought of it Like That
though it’s likely to come, tomorrow’s not set,
…….. this day’s loose ends twist in the wind
………like kite tails in blue jerked at the end of present’s string,
………they’re codas no one can sing—
………the future’s not something on which you should bet
only now sings real arias
if I stand on the bridge in the middle of town
where the river splits in bow waves at abutments
beneath my feet as the bridge’s foot in the stream
becomes a ship’s prow plowing north to nowhere,
the riverskin gives back an early crimson sky,
an oscillating rendition of itself—
in the otherwise slick mirror of the stream below
I catch a glimpse my rippled head in flames
of pleated clouds
I am its aria
as I turn and walk off I get it,
the past is inevitable
and set
Jim Culleny, 12/17/15
Photo: The Bridge of Flowers
by Martin Yaffee