- The Parchment of Time
Early November 2008
Leaves are falling. I have cast my vote and now, returninghome, I am pausing on the planks of a bridgeto watch the water in Antelope Creek
find its way to some distant joining. Leaves falling: orangeinto rust into the colors the sunset will assumecome evening. The woman I am with
is the woman I was with when this voyage began. Separatelywe cast our votes together. Now, our handson the rail at the side of the bridge,
we watch leaves falling, some of them finding the water inAntelope Creek, each a lightness borne slowlyin the current, one from a sycamore
like a wide open hand cradling the sun. When the momentseems right we'll move on, she ahead of me,kicking the leaves, I admiring her pace,
the tireless movement of her legs. We have cast our votes,both of which will be noted tonight as we sitwith books in our laps watching and
listening to the returns. Leaves meanwhile are falling, toomany to count or assimilate, orange into rustinto sunset. I'll have watched it, the
sunset, before the closing of the polls. Eloise will havecalled it to my attention, whereuponI'll join her to do the watching. [End Page 542]
Colors like those of the leaves we saw falling, she'll say,and I'll nod, and, later, numberson the screen beginning
to rival those of the falling leaves, I'll remember her as shewalked ahead of me, the pace, the scissoringof tireless legs, both of us moving
and kicking leaves—not angrily, but festively, like childrenwhose hopes are the rhythms they dance tolong before the music begins.
Song in Praise of the Beginning
Upon the occasion of the inauguration of Barack Obama
as the forty-fourth president of the United States.
—Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Now the moment, having arrived on the backsof so many others, extends its tireless armsto receive the masses—the thick and the thin,
the up and the down, the dark and the light andeveryone else in between, and, slow as molassesmoving in January's calm icy air
moves the moment, hope in the human breasteternally springing, names on the parchment of timeso slowly unscrolling—those short and those tall,
the brash and the coy, the young and the weathered andeveryone else in between, and somewhere in somegrotto of memory the clickety-clack of an ancient age [End Page 543]
yet resounding: Now is the time for all beating heartsto come to the aid of their country—the near andthe far, the pumped and the weary, the believer
and otherwise and everyone else in between, andthe moment hangs on, and words joined to wordsbecome the sentences we say with our silence,
we are ready to serve—the in and the out, the haltand the lame, the have and the not and everyone elsein between, and the grand mosaic, as one, sways
ever so slightly, now this way, now that, massive,undaunted, each of its tiles interlocking, eachno more the riddle than the glory of a world
wild in its carnage to live free—the sated and theempty, the sighted, the eyeless, the clothedand the naked and everyone else
in between, and though there is finally abenediction, there is no end, there is only, asalways, and for which we are grateful, the beginning. [End Page 544]
William Kloefkorn's most recent collection of poetry is Out of Attica. His fourth book of memoirs, Breathing in the Fullness of Time, will be reviewed in these pages next year.