Memorial

maybe there is no such thing as
enough time to grieve the truly grievous loss
never a time that you will not stumble into the inevitable pocket of memory that you thought (you dreamed you had buried it)
stumbled into the for last time and would never have to do it again
and again the earth opens and you remember

driving
a winding road on the east coast in 1962
in summer
in the back of a vw bug in your pajamas
the scent of beach roses hovering in the night air. you
counting street lights
on the way home from the drive in

you should be sleeping but the material in the back of the vw is
too scratchy
and it is too much fun to be out this late any way
way way past bedtime
way past

in the past I would swallow this bitter pill,
the waking up to it,the knowing of
this memory of june, carried on the scent of a fragile rose
in the early summer on the beach

bitter bitter winters to follow
still unthinkable

what stops you in your tracks is that the memory is so clear and yet so distant
you can almost be there if you close your eyes and

if the world would just stop

just for a minute
and let you go back
just to be there in that time

when you knew what it was like to know that the world was going to be like this forever
and if you wanted something with your whole heart you could have it.

maybe it doesn’t matter if you are fifteen or fifty
if the earth opens up that way
you fall
and you are in that place at the same time as you are actually walking along
and it is always a surprise
because you had long since forgotten that you had ever been that way

that innocent
and there it is
almost reachable and always irretrievable

it was just a rose, just
a reminder
memento mori