the ages of a person pour
they mash-up in thunderous cataracts of a life
I'm in this immense universe wash-cycle
and cannot isolate even the smallest
fiber of memory because
we are waterfall consuming itself
turning into bits of moss dragonflies contrails
we are not photographs or videos of ourselves
a person is not stages is not this age or another
the living and dead are discontinuous continuous
the distance and nearness is so vast we
cannot even locate
the mother's starry body grows large and everywhere
flooding freeways, wifi, clouds, indifference
cruelty, stillness, many flung things charred
and smashed by their own beauty
freshness deep alive humming low
in grains of dirt like ants
we are so unmapped rotating
in spheres unsurveilled by Google drones
the flux of even a single life gives me vertigo
all you could wish for
and the isolation and grief you don't wish for
gathered kindred into the quiet loam
of redwoods into vast granitic cities
and foam of waves to sway like otters
tethered buoyant in their long kelp-fronds

Meredith Stricker

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