THE BIG DIPPER OF TIME

Children laugh and run in blue shadows

as snow glitters in light, and time

- that old spine time that sustains -

folds, and in this moment is another,

different children and different shadows,

a day awash in late winter sunlight,

voices and faces now familiar.

A big dipper that turns my stomach

and makes my mind dizzy;

I close my eyes, and opening

I glimpse the last moment of a world

righting itself, a ship

close to capsizing correcting,

coming to a rest. Now

one moment only, this ever-fleeting

being printed into memory in

my brain, ever escaping,

and feeling ill I find way

inside, where the shouting

of the children echoes

from decade to decade.

19.03.2018