AN ARC OF MEMORY

AN ARC OF MEMORY

All he really must do now

is mine those quarries
of memory, 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 the sky conspire
to eat the sun, a gem still there.

He scoured the lime mountains
in Les Baux; shook a trembling

finger at the source of metals
that shaped the monster planes
that burned his playgrounds.

With downpours of napalm.

Bombs.
When he was young.
But he is old now.
And he is on a dream vacation.

 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA