BECOMING HISTORY
History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man.
………. —Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
Your breath almost imperceptible,
the burr of hummingbird wings,
as your chest rises and falls
like the tubular flowers
they scour for nectar.
Then it stops
and you become history.
2.
As I walk home along Wellington
night succumbs,
light blanches the sky,
the waning moon is a figment,
birds in the trees
fuss a cappella,
a far off ambulance
keens on its way,
the wind reaches a callous finger
under my shirt tail, lifts it,
shivers distress my body.
3.
I turn down Warren,
no one awake
to what has passed.
I unlock the door, enter
a room where your likeness,
a photo taken at 100,
looks off to the distance—
eyes vivacious with laughter,
impish grin animates your face.
All those years—a lifetime so long
vanished, now so short.
Author’s Bio
Blaine Marchand’s award-winning writing has appeared in Canada, the US and Pakistan. Recent collections, Aperture (2008) and The Craving of Knives (2009) were short-listed for the Archibald Lampman Award. A chapbook, My Head, Filled With Pakistan, was published in November 2016. A full-length collection, Where You Dwell, is being completed.