Time and Distance

 

I.

 

I once thought proximity doesn’t count -

wherever I am, I’ll still thrill to the sound

of your name, be able to recreate

the feel of my feet running on your ground.

 

I thought if I just closed my eyes I’d see

your vast skies spinning slowly over me

the sun and the stars don’t discriminate

and yet they now appear differently.

 

Is it my sight I’m losing, or my mind?

The exact textures of things left behind

become harder to recall and replicate.

The thrill’s the same, but something has gone blind.

 

Won’t matter how far I go – I thought that once

but in the end time is the greatest distance.

 

II.

 

I thought I’d be able to grope some recess

and find you, ever changing yet changeless.

Draw up the exact shape of fig and neem,

the acacias in the open wilderness.

 

Some of their limbs remain - that much is true.

The curve of highway, the straight avenue.

But the mind isn’t quite the thing it seems,

it loses the details without meaning to.  

 

I’m not the one to rail against the failings

of sight, and mind, of puny mortal things,

the systems of recall, blurred like a dream,

the lengthening of shadows, the last dimming.

I did think I’d carry you with me once

But time’s proved to be the farthest distance.   

 

III.

 

The sunlight lying in thick slabs on the floor,

but I cannot recall the tiles anymore.

The cement paving in the porch and back,

the size the glass panes were on the main door.

 

The numbers on some of the cars and the crunch

of gravel beneath their tyres. Being served lunch

on a green table cloth. The music tracks.

The crack in the tub. The smell of the sponge.

 

So a few remain – the trivial, the strange,

and strange are the filters chosen to arrange

the sequence, the way the trivia stacks

and what was changeless once begins to change.

 

I thought I could dream you up anywhere once.

But time has morphed itself into distance.