Friday 25 August 2006

The Amnesia of the Cosmos by Steven Schroeder

She has come in time
to these moments of forgetfulness. Only
yesterday, the whole thing burned
red hot. Now it is cold.
That white chalk feathered
on a background of ice looks so familiar,
and the rattling in the tree, something
stirring that might have been
extinct. She can see her sighs
now, cirrus wisps that grow
heavy, roll into cumulus, cumulonimbus
piled high; and, for the life of her,
she cannot remember how to stop the rain.


Steven Schroeder, Chicago, USA

2 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

I love the image of clouds being the sighs of the Cosmos.

Jim said...

Oh yes, I know what this says to me, this poem is about age and the common problem these days of anxiety over non-understandable loss of memory, overwhelming somehow. Of course, this is just me, but this is a strong poem.