Monday, July 07, 2025

My Hand


See how the past is not finished
 here in the present
 it is awake the whole time
 never waiting
 it is my hand now but not what I held
 it is not my hand but what I held
 it is what I remember 
but it never seems quite the same
 no one else remembers it
 a house long gone into air
 the flutter of tires over a brick road
 cool light in a vanished bedroom
 the flash of the oriole
 between one life and another
 the river a child watched

--W.S. Merwin