Les invités du dimanche, Max Ernst, 1924.
If time is a measure for all human experience
Then it’s also the pond we know we must dredge—
the frogs asleep in its center, a heron
who has made it her home
and the small spring that feeds it, which is warmer
than the earth in winter, the grass green
along its banks, becoming the day after twelve
inches of snow, a ribbon of emerald
If time is the measure for what we have
to let go
then it’s a placeholder and only for now
which in the language I’m learning has the same source
as hour and weather, che tempo fa,
tempo passa in fretta, which means an inevitable
going, summer to winter
If time is a measure
for what’s going, than someone has forgotten
to remove the price
from the painting we found in the attic—
a faded watercolor and its gray field
of frostweed and thistle
It’s the measure for the frogs we give up
for the grief
for your handbag, the wallet still in it, your scarves
and black sweater, your shoes worn
at the heels, for the heron, her blue body
a line towards the sky
then it is also for you
my friend, who only in time will I see
Sarah Wetzel
Sarah Wetzel is the author of three poetry collections, most recently The Davids Inside David, from Terrapin Books. Sarah is Publisher and Editor at Saturnalia Books, and when not shuttling between her two geographic loves—Rome, Italy and New York City—she is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature in the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. She is trying to spend less time on planes. You can see more of her work at www.sarahwetzel.com.
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