Tectonics

Ted Kooser, Delights and Shadows

In only a few months
there begin to be fissures
in what we remember,
and within a year or two,
the facts break apart
one from another
and slowly begin to shift
and turn, grinding,
pushing up over each other
until their shapes
have been changed
and the past has become
a new world.
And after many years,
even a love affair,
one lush green island
all to itself,
perfectly detailed
with even a candle
softly lighting a smile,
may slide under the waves
like Atlantis,
scarcely rippling the heart.

Ted Kooser, current Poet Laureate of the US, uses a familiar suite of metaphors to touch on the age old process by which humans consciously and unconsciously edit the past. - JRD