for Sarah
Pretension has it
you can’t
get back
what’s gone by.
Yet I don’t believe it.
The sky
in this place
stays here
and the sun
comes, or goes
and comes again,
on the same day.
We live in a circle,
older or younger,
we go round
and around on this earth.
I was trying to remember
what it
was like
at your age.
From The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–1975, by Robert Creeley, © 2006 by the Regents of the University of California. Published by the University of California Press. Used with permission of the University of California Press and the Estate of Robert Creeley.
I have seen a life laid to waste, in the name of pure stubbornness, in the absolute definition of denial. I see my own life. Caught up on the same rails, charging full steam ahead, to a tunnel where no light shines. The gates of experience fly by. Still frames of adventures I have excused myself from for reasons, for selfishness. Vanity . . . shame. The double yellow line, solid and illuminated, laughs as I attempt to find the nerve. To dare cross. Throwing up walls of resistance as the hourglass bleeds grains of sand I can't afford. I have seen a lifetime laid to waste, and in its shadow, I have seen my own.
From Nothing Left to Lose by Natasha Head. Copyright © 2012 by Natasha Head. Reprinted with permission of Winter Goose Press. All rights reserved.