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(St. Louis,2002)
The plane touches down,
creating this city again
from its latency among
the maps of memory.
The roads here lead
to old places in my brain,
comfortable furrows
like the ones you see etched
on grey-matter
surfaces in photographs.
Roads of memory,
you sweet grooves
that led me away, flung
to the east, then
to the west, spun
in the centrifuge of time
away from the child
impressioned by Easton Avenue
carnival neon lights
near the old furniture store,
away from flickering TV
phantoms of our green,
dark living room,
away from daddy's
beloved mansmell
and shiny, bald head!
Coming back now,
I open memory's drawer.
Storms that raged here
have blown themselves out,
old volcanoes are quiet,
grown over with green.
I find a heaven
where the past makes
love to the present,
an aesthetic universe with the added
feature of a beating pulse,
a living loop-around
like a metaphysical Cessna
flying mobius strip curlicues
in the time-space continuum.
Raising my cup
of this heady blend
and looking out the
picture-window of Time,
I drink to this
elegant simplicity.
copyright 2002 by Max Reif
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