ANNIVERSARY OF A DREAM

 

 

How a year goes by – and

we are barely aware

 

We are boats

firmly docked at a pier

 

Are we still uncomfortable that we float on water

and not on our dear terra firma?

 

Or are we weirdly solaced

by the mere fact

we have not gone anywhere

 

Yes – we’re still here –

That’s one positive in our precarious voyage

 

But at night, listening to stars fall

and the moon change phase

 

I wonder how we measure progess –

If not by miles, is it by revolutions?

 

The hands of the clock

are the obvious agents provocateurs

 

But how about the moon unravelled?

A circle stretched onto a surface?

 

Time cycling by in a line;

Sine waves lapping beneath this stationary ship;

 

Say it’s just my heart, beating

My body on saltwater, floating

 

Mathematical primum mobile of foolish dreams?

Or tiny raft, shimmering in the breeze?

 

 

Susan Smith Nash