I have been a bad, bad blogger recently. Or just a busy one. I'm not sure. Despite my busyness, though, not much significant has happened in my life. So here's a poem from the new U.S. poet laureate, Natasha Tretheway:
Theories of Time and Space
You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.
Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been. Try this:
head south on Mississippi 49, one-
by-one mile markers ticking off
another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion – dead end
at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches
in a sky threatening rain. Cross over
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand
dumped on a mangrove swamp – buried
terrain of the past. Bring only
what you must carry – tome of memory
its random blank pages. On the dock
where you board the boat for Ship Island,
someone will take your picture:
the photograph – who you were –
will be waiting when you return
