“The Sound of Then”
I heard your voice—
a flicker through static,
soft as dust on an old cassette.
And suddenly,
I wasn’t here at all.
I was there—
back in summer’s too-loud laughter,
......
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
......
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
......
Modern Machinery
We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit--
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!
......
About the size of an old-style dollar bill,
American or Canadian,
mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays
-this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?)
has never earned any money in its life.
Useless and free., it has spent seventy years
as a minor family relic handed along collaterally to owners
who looked at it sometimes, or didn't bother to.
It must be Nova Scotia; only there
......
“The Sound of Then”
I heard your voice—
a flicker through static,
soft as dust on an old cassette.
And suddenly,
I wasn’t here at all.
I was there—
back in summer’s too-loud laughter,
......
We walked together, side by side,
through years that flickered, then passed us by.
Laughter lingered, voices bright,
until silence claimed the stars at night.
Now echoes press against the air,
soft reminders that you were there.
Time untangles, then lets you go,
yet in my heart, you still echo.
i wanted to write about you
lovely cherry
you didn't ask to be born too
but you are glad you do
i wanted to write about you
cuz you are not like anyone i knew
you didn't say anything you want to be
you just ARE everything you want to be
......
The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch
A black ringlet curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember
now that I cannot forget.
......
blooms mass in a vase
a vivid get together
days in sun recalled
wild hours of weather
when they were younger so green
remembering scenes
sunset blooms laughing
comparing lovely costumes
......