Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Span


From Robyn Sarah's Pause for Breath (Biblioasis, 2009). I like to read this poem alongside Sonnet 116--would it be Valentine's Day without the Bard's only quotable poem on love?--so I've included a link below.

Span
We write on Time
until our rhyme
runs out,
until the chalk itself
has dwindled to a nub
and less than that,
a smudge of powder
on a fingertip,
a powder shed
upon the ground.

Our frail agency
in the world, this:
our brave chalk line,
our mark on Time -
first firm, then skipping
like a vapour trail,
and soon enough rubbed out
by Time's felt brush
in Time's fell hand
(or by a celestial Thumb.)

What then can our intrepid cursive prove?
- Still, let us make our rhyme a rhyme of love.


Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

The statue (Chronos clipping the wings of Eros) is from the Rococo Garden in Veitschöchheim on Main, near Würzburg.

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