erase by Evgeniy ShamanSea
To have lost even the why or the what for –
to dream and to wake with the weight
of even the mechanical why even the mechanical wherefore –
the primitive one-string cello,
bent low playing a threnody, thread, theme I know,
into the night as I wake heaving it, hearing it –
like a chorus dissolving
not only sadness, sea,
but past sadness
past past sadness
now that I live so close to your sound, sea,
even at night wake to listen for you –
close to your smell
close and often to your salvage
your changing sand and rock shelf, sea,
lost generations
lost progenitors
past sadness, sea
to dream and to wake with the weight
of even the mechanical why even the mechanical wherefore –
the primitive one-string cello,
bent low playing a threnody, thread, theme I know,
into the night as I wake heaving it, hearing it –
like a chorus dissolving
not only sadness, sea,
but past sadness
past past sadness
now that I live so close to your sound, sea,
even at night wake to listen for you –
close to your smell
close and often to your salvage
your changing sand and rock shelf, sea,
lost generations
lost progenitors
past sadness, sea
© 2009, Joan Metelerkamp
From: Burnt Offering
Publisher: Modjaji Books, Cape Town, 2009
ISBN: 9780980272949
