The Persistence of Time

New Year Sunset, December 2019

Happy New Year to all reading. I hope that 2020 will bring you health and happiness. I've written a poem today to mark the end of an often difficult decade. When I went for a walk earlier I saw a lady in a red coat in the distance and that was the seed of the poem. A quick thank you to Dodging the Rain, The Pickled Body and Atrium Poetry who recently published my work.

The Persistence of Time

I wonder if she is more a future figure than a past,

this lady of the year, in a red coat festive stepping

around the corner that stretches to a decade-long length of road?

It is only when she is out of view that I wonder.

I do remember when the 80s became the 90s,

all that revolution, and when the 90s turned millennium.

2009 was an ice-cube in the Harvey Wallbanger of the 2010s.

It is only when she is out of view that I wonder.

This late afternoon could be an abstract of time,

its dreary sky combined with misting rain makes tree-clocks.

Dull, surreal faces spin about bare branch tops.

It is only when she is out of view that I wonder.

The big hand spire of the church takes me back

to Christmas morning, the sleepy mass, hymns

dreamlike, the intoxication of cloying incense.

It is only when she is out of view that I wonder.

Now I have the present and a different communion,

those walking whose spirits flicker like candle flames

in the oppressiveness of the day with chants of greeting

“A Happy New Year to you!”

The religiosity of life lays itself down for my attention,

a path both worn and unworn unknown.

Salvador Dali, musing, strokes his giant moustache before me.

When she is out of sight it is troubling to consider

that the past is the future in a rear-view mirror.

Orla Fay