EARTH TIME UNEARTHS A MEMORY

The day’s first dew clings to a blade
of new grass that doesn’t yet know
its own tenderness.
Nor strength. Pearly. Translucent.
Reluctant. A transient nacre,
the dew slides when it loses grip,
but doesn’t drop. Even as it gives of itself,
layer by layer to the hankering day.
Time’s impatience is a slow march.

The crows that have gathered
on your garden wall for your daily
offering of rice to your ancestors.
The dragonflies that die
every day after mating. The tabby
cat that eats her weakest kitten, both
to cease its suffering and let
her fittest survive. They know the seasons.
Their mercy follows the clock.

A spider weaves its web over
and over again. Mending the weakest
link. Strengthening the silk. Back
and forth. Forth and back. Invisible
cloak that prolongs life or ends it,
depending on your point of view. Mystical
rhythm. The cycles, a millennium old.
The natural world’s kindness is beyond human ken.

You swivel your head at the nudge of a memory.
The little green snake that had its mouth open
in anguish or terror – who knew
or cared? – hissed its swan song
beneath the avalanche of stones and the screams of school girls.
You see it clearly now – That dry drain
in which it lay, raising its head, but seeing no mercy
above it. Only a kaleidoscope of monstrous
faces hellbent on ending its time
long before its own clock was meant to stop.
Tic toc tic toc tic toc.
Walls absorb the beat. Sand grains fall
somewhere. You cannot reverse time.
You can kill. You cannot give back life.