In the Slant Light
On a grassy bank under a willow tree
I fell asleep pillowed in an elbow of summer,
and woke to see snow falling.
It is too late now for many things,
too late for so many things.
The sun barely skirts the treetops
before beginning its downward arc.
Across the still air, sporadic hammer-sounds
ring out, metal on metal—men on scaffolds,
men on ladders in the slant light,
battening down the hatches for winter.
What happened to noon, high noon?
There used to be noon.
Time is evaporating like a tide pool,
leaving its stranded flotsam, a cipher
scribbled across the sand. Debris
of our days—we had better look to it.
What to discard, and what pass on?
What yet to hoard to keep us warm?
Something to dig around in.
Something to chew on.
As the future shrinks, the past
looms larger, the past
is compost, is pemmican.
Robyn Sarah
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