simplifying what we saw.
The atmosphere began to hibernate
into the realm of hypothesis.
—Luljeta Lleshanaku
A Last Look Back
Things change behind my back.
The starting snow I was just watching
has escaped into the past.
Well, not the past, but the part of the world
that surrounds the moment at hand.
That's why, whenever I see
animal tracks in a light snow like this,
I think of footnotes.
So strange, to inhabit a space
and then leave it vacant, standing open.
Each change in me is a stone step
beneath the blur of snow.
In spring the sharp edges cut through.
When I look back, I see my former selves,
numerous as the trees.
—Chase Twichell
NOTES
—Luljeta Lleshanaku. trans from Albanian by Shpresa Qatipi from the poem Over the Icy Magma of Your Gray Curiosity, in her collection Fresco (2002)
—Chase Twichell, A Last Look Back from her collection The Snow Watcher (1998)
