ARC OF MEMORY

ARC OF MEMORY

Bright sweeps of sudden light from trucks on the road; arcs of memory on a more interior windshield. From “Reversed Alphabet of Rain” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 08-23-12

 

 All he really must do now is mine those quarries
 of memories, like bauxite, lining the silent boulders
 inside burrowing caverns. They still glisten, these
 cracked stones. Briefly. But he was an innocent lad
 from the lowlands then, he counted them like marbles.

 He saw those stones again on a slow cruise from the city
 where on deck he could see the sea and sky conspire
 to eat the sun, a gem still there. Scouring those lime
 mountains in Les Baux, he shook his trembling finger
 at the source of metals that shaped the monster planes
 that burned his playgrounds with napalm bombs.
 When he was young.


—Albert B. Casuga
 08-24-12