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.
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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