Bent and Beat

by an address

a year

a street just distinct enough in my memory

that perhaps i recall every other house

right at that point where mostly things are foggy at best

but certain other things are clear and accessible

as if i am the ghost

staring over those distant moment and observing

so close to it that to the keen eye

i am visible

though fading in and out only at their periphery

still tangible

perhaps in their minds i am a time traveler

come back to observe some moment of great historical importance

of which the are somehow part

when i am but merely a specter feeding upon the scent of yesterday

afraid of the next world

so i tarry in the last

just a few days are all you need

to carry you through

if they are good days

and they shine with just the right light

in your memory

the dunes that buried cities, collapsed civilizations?

a sea of sand that drifted and piled

making everything exotic and foreign

so strange and beautiful they had to create a new language

to describe it all.

along with the language rose cultures and religions

that paralleled those interred beneath the dunes.

for most of a summer the sand blew in

blasting away the grey and damp dark of the city

etching new meaning into that which remained.

make for poor charts

to set course of a ship already in threatening waters

and

castaways make for poor sailors

bent toward solitude and madness

making better hermits than shipmates

a letter in a bottle means nothing

once you are found