a sonnet in response to Meghan O’Rourke’s
Down by the shore of unknown name
I heard an ancient wind; that was nothing
So properly named. You are always nothing
For no one lasts, the last are first and final.
The first are fluff, letters, scribblings on a page.
We hear the echo of ourselves in tense
and verse, in syllables arranged
across the landscape of a thousand years.
But invisible as was the wind just named,
you are filtered through me and me through you,
light on the rain, the gulls guide by an empty hand,
but only joined from lightyears away.
Notice the inconsistencies in time, the word
bubbles, falls, and burns away at the center of the sun.
