Past years are figures in old glass
wobbly in a lake
wrinkled by a stone.
The lake will settle down
a face will reappear
in a scent of evergreen.
Years are present as noon as now
or in a rippled moonglade night;
they summon shadow as in fragile memory
easy as stepping into a lake
breaking the present mirror.
It is the way events are stored,
they come back twisted
in wrinkles of water
blurred inscapes into today.
From Writing the Silences (University of California Press, 2010) by Richard O. Moore. Copyright © 2010 by the Regents of the University of California. Used with permission of University of California Press Books.