these / beautiful upstagings of / what we suffer by / what survives.
We Are Always Too Late
Eavan Boland
Memory
is in two parts.
First, the revisiting:
the way even now I can see
those lovers at the cafe table. She is weeping.
It is New England, breakfast time, winter. Behind her,
outside the picture window, is
a stand of white pines.
New snow falls and the old,
losing its balance in the branches,
showers down,
adding fractions to it. Then
the reenactment. Always that.
I am getting up, pushing away
coffee. Always, I am going towards her.
The flush and scald is
to her forehead now, and back down to her neck.
I raise one hand. I am pointing to
those trees, I am showing her our need for these
beautiful upstagings of
what we suffer by
what survives. And she never even sees me.
Eavan Boland
Memory
is in two parts.
First, the revisiting:
the way even now I can see
those lovers at the cafe table. She is weeping.
It is New England, breakfast time, winter. Behind her,
outside the picture window, is
a stand of white pines.
New snow falls and the old,
losing its balance in the branches,
showers down,
adding fractions to it. Then
the reenactment. Always that.
I am getting up, pushing away
coffee. Always, I am going towards her.
The flush and scald is
to her forehead now, and back down to her neck.
I raise one hand. I am pointing to
those trees, I am showing her our need for these
beautiful upstagings of
what we suffer by
what survives. And she never even sees me.