Dumbara

Smoke-laden land
do you remember
our long ago
so much younger than yours:
first wary days
unease flowering into ownership
a natural death by drowning
at a time that did not foresee
that other time of fire-death
and water-funeral? 

Do you footnote and forget
the wrong word that buried love
and the right act that invited blow
upon blow upon blow,
and just archive the sweeping signatures
of moment and madness?

I remember innocent love

and the names, faces, words
of those who are beyond photograph
the gymnasium that’s no more
and the ground that hasn’t aged.

I trace back from now-face
those names that were resident,
but you,
what do you hold
in your mist-clothed heart
at dawn,
in stone-gaze afternoon
and firefly night?

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