Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REMEMBERING LOVES AND DEATHS, by THOMAS MCGRATH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REMEMBERING LOVES AND DEATHS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: They happened in us
Last Line: That was pure honey, once
Subject(s): Denver, Colorado; Honey; Salt Lake City, Utah


They happened in us . . .
But later we moved away --
Or they did.

Went west.
Went south to the goldfields.
Disappeared somewhere beyond Salt Lake or Denver --
Their roads are still in the map of our flesh:
Easy to get to almost any time
Around midnight.

But the land shifts and changes, the map
Gets out of date,
The century stretches its joints,
And one day we stand by the marked tree and ask: WAS IT HERE
WAS IT HERE
While, stunned but tireless,
Memory, the lodestone that always points toward pain,
Hunts, slow and sluggish for its North,
Turning through the thickening crystals of tired flesh
That was pure honey, once.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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