Nathan AM Almeida

[1 July 2019]

Midsummer midnight air is a sacredness all its own –
The last relics of era when bygones were still being forged,
Cradled in the halls of the forebears of the now,
Suspended in the intransitory,
Illuminating the hale tongue and the meek spirit: not fire,
Not frost, but a light unique to itself and to you.
It moves, and you move: a living being, a bloom
Without awareness of its own self; free. The unimpeachable
Longing borne of love and liberty and ordinary time.

If I saw you again, would I recognise you?
Knowing what you know and seeing what you’ve seen
And knowing what I know and seeing what I’ve seen,
Can we ever say that we are the same people we were?
Moments are built, one on top of the other, like sandstone
Or cake or brick. The roots search for water but come up dry.
The end of the journey is the same as the start: not knowing
What you have or what you came for, but knowing that you must,
Inevitably, start – moved past all semblance of mortality and temporality
(Each of its own will being stripped of transcendence, turning to moth and moss and must –
A crown, battered and worn and drowned but still retaining its jewels: sight and desire –
The dual orbs, the satellites, that lie just outside the realm of comprehension
And serve no purpose other than pushing into something beyond themselves),
In the claws of the tundra or the jaws of democracy.

Even so, there are places that remain unchanged,
Untouched by the passage of time and chance
(Even when the hallowed halls of memory warp with wear
And develop unsightly treads we can’t seem to avoid).
There is their purpose – an ikigai demarcated out since before time
Made a name for itself: something more than vapid
Curiosity or a mishmash of verbiage designed to delude. Selfhood is
Something to be attained, never grasped, nor altered with the alterer.
I find you still in the dusking shallows, the holy mnemonics of the lake at night,
The valse to things that can never be undone, (nor would we ever choose to).
We lay down our swords and our palm branches and our trench coats
And take up the inevitable pastime of being circuitous,
Harvesting the crop we planted long before we knew how to remember,
While the river flows wide under the shadow of the steeple,
Running grain and melting wine and smelting stars of bloody flesh.