Between the pages generations yearned.
Inside, sometime, someone had pressed a rose,
then closed the book and, never to return,
left it for me to wonder. I suppose
she thought of coming back to it, but then
that thought had passed, the way most thoughts depart,
unlikely ever to be thought again,
once given shape out of a mood apart.
The husks of our remembrances will age
beyond us, the detritus of a dream
once dreamt alone, til someone turns a page
and dwells a moment there. Then, it may seem
at once too much to tell, a story set
in happenstance of language and decay,
and petals bled of stain -- as if regret
had taken shape when left to bleed away
by shades into the words, upon the sheet.
So much will not be saved, so far beyond
the reach of story, lapsed and incomplete ---
these sacred things we close a book upon.
The Husks of Our Remembrances
Listen to my reading of this poem
