A couple people sat spaced out watching some old black and white film I didn’t recognize, but it didnt seem like they were paying attention, just gazing up at something bright. I sat down and we wasted away together, each one of us waiting for something as we watched grey men on the screen who were either dead or dying.
Every green leaf on C Street lit with the end of the world.
Each leaf in the mind said that the apocalypse
already happened or was happening each moment
but went unnoticed. To be young astounds me now.
I’d forgotten the same fine cord was drawn
through then and now and later, the realization never ended.
The poem, the pen, the lamp, the cup
all slightly more than their forms, already out of their forms,
exposed to sight. The shoddy heft of supposed age
withers away; its withering space provides
ample room. And the joy of mind flows
through the joy of form
and gladness takes the cool, pure air
into its great lungs.
Such great and easy destruction.
I am rolled up within it.
Each leaf in the mind said that the apocalypse
already happened or was happening each moment
but went unnoticed. To be young astounds me now.
I’d forgotten the same fine cord was drawn
through then and now and later, the realization never ended.
The poem, the pen, the lamp, the cup
all slightly more than their forms, already out of their forms,
exposed to sight. The shoddy heft of supposed age
withers away; its withering space provides
ample room. And the joy of mind flows
through the joy of form
and gladness takes the cool, pure air
into its great lungs.
Such great and easy destruction.
I am rolled up within it.
-Sean Norton
