Memorial Hill

Sitting on the hard edge of the past
our conversations punctuated with stars
and lack of sleep
we tangle and untangle
thoughts, selves, souls, hearts, limbs.

Behind us, the Memorial -
calcified, unchangeable -
petrified lives engraved in granite,
an homage to the carnage of glorious war.

Before us, rolling into verdant growth and open air,
a hill, cascading down from our feet to
a field, wide and waiting for play, and
a forest ranging deep and rising away into
sky, vast and shifting and rich with sunrise,
the scents of lifting flight
and all the blooming atmospheres of tomorrow -
of what could- may-will be -
eternity.

This pause, this sitting-on-stair,
this meeting of flesh on stone,
is all that we can rightly call
Now -
a thin edge -
a molecule of a moment -
a word that falls into space -

a kiss to vanish on your face.

-Amherst College, Reunion 2018