Heraclitus got it wrong; time’s no river, but swells in waves, a dark sea
or the passing wind upon a field of rye. Abreast the mounting wave –
and with a rush, outstripping your breath, it lifts your carcass, punches your gut –
you’re left gasping there on the packed earth, shaking salt-crystals from your hair,
lost in a mist of pollen or blown hay.
It is always one pulse either before or after, never quite now.
The storm ripples the pale field
and the passing rider, dark against the sky, bends from the saddle –
the lips of then and later brush your mouth with a kiss that would be now
but ends up never: silent on the hard clay you lie wondering
whether anything at all ever really happened in your life:
you are pinioned there like Prometheus, a fitful dreamer,
a madwoman raving of lost pearls and lace.
The sea lies quiet.
The pounding hooves are still.Part time English professor, part time organic farmer, Rebecca Bratten Weiss resides in rural Ohio. She has published a chapbook of poetry, Palaces of Dust, co-authored two works of comic fiction, and is currently seeking publication for The Serpent Motif, an epic-tragic-comic novel about commune life.