Easier Harbors.

Rolland, Rebecca Givens

Easier Harbors

   We live now in a mysterious present:
   light's cantilevered 'round us, shadows
   close up as soon as we move our feet.

   Even beads seem anchored to the table,
   held down with paperweights and buttons
   til it seems they were never free to roll.

   Familiar objects near us, seeming cheerful,
   becoming clearer, larger, telescoped.
   We feel decades peeling back: it's as if

   we've been grandfathered into youth, given
   back our strange and playful years. Still,
   we don't inhabit proverbs: no stones thrown,

   glass houses shown to the neighbors. True,
   no great inheritance awaits us, slip-covered
   furniture or Victorian chairs. Only the sense

   that time, once meant for us, has turned
   its face. Other loves, bare waters: the pain
   of having been mistaken (think of better ways

   we might have lived). Won't be long before
   we lose the pain: we sift through petals, looking
   for something in our hands to be preserved.