Famous Reporter # 29: June, 2004

 

Lyn Reeves

 

            Memento mori

 

               Jet is the bead for mourning,

               black, pure and hard -

 

               it is the shadowed forest, vibrant

               with birds and leaves

 

               and the death of forests -

               Long nights of rain sweeping

 

               fallen branches, abraded

               by river stones, to the sea.

 

               A rich silt covers them,

               seeps into grains and fissures,

 

               the weight of time and waves

               compressing the fibres to a dark

 

               jewel, a lens to view the earth’s

               histories: the first expulsion,

 

               the voyage on the swollen tide,

               the siege of mud - each bead

 

               is a bereavement: the empty crib,

               eroded hills, fields of blood, the burial

 

               of love. Add your own lament

               to this inventory of loss. Catch

 

               in the lustre of a stone whose colour

               never fades, your mirrored breath.