print previewback MARK IRWIN
Brief Sketch from There to Here
We’ve come a long way but our departure’s still not
begun. It’s as when the first westerning explorers thought
they could catch the sun always setting beyond
before someone sketched these cities then began to fill all
the people in.—The wilderness that was and was and was. What
we once saw, now only pictured. You touch the glassy
paper on the postcard where once there were trees. Its sheen
reminds of a lake’s small noise where a hawk’s height’s
reflected. You touch and touch then realize that you
are aging too, that the field, once so vast, gets smaller
as the players grow, holding onto one another, moving
halfway, then half of that till the last stinging inches, then
the seconds fill us like a lake with rain, and dawn and twilight’s
twin dresses, always known, gather to lay us down. 
Brief Sketch from There to Here
The
Chimpanzee
Twist-O-Flex