Don's Blog "Tectonics" 1-8-2020

Ted Kooser is a poet who lives outside of Garland, Nebraska. A friend recently wrote me that memory is everything. If that is true I am in trouble.

          Tectonics

In only a few months

there begin to be fissures 

in what we remember,

and within a year or two

the facts break apart

one from another

and slowly begin to shift

and turn, grinding.

pushing up and over each other

until their shapes

have been changed

and the past has become a new world.

And after many years

even a love affair,

one lush green island

all to itself,

perfectly detailed,

with even a candle 

softly lighting a smile,

may slide under the waves

like Atlantis,

scarcely rippling the heart.

Ted Kooser

Delights and Shadows

Copper Canyon Press 2004