Margaret Beaver’s poem Night appeared here in June. Margaret is a young writer who makes great use of lovely poetry. You can hear her read this poem during her appearance on vox poetica’s 15 Minutes of Poetry.
For the Passage of Time
By Margaret Beaver
these are hours in her hands as seashells
she would scatter them as the great tide swells
and the ocean rises in her ears as many bells
let her discard them
they are only fragments (of a small life
they speak of an old moment
void yet present/as an omen
these sculptures of small ridges)
white as bone are mouths
yet dry but for a saltiness
so old and the exhaling wind
of the deep current cold
if truth is this that an hour spent in companionship is
valuable as one spent in loneliness she does not
perceive it
oh, let her cast them among the broad sea’s tongue!
these are not pearls to her/they are painful
& sharp
and she is scared when holding them
please leave her
to herself
to wander the coast in her softest dress
to converse with the birds and to rest
near the great sunken monument to men.
Great imagery.