Endless Circles by
Michael Dylan Welch and David Terelinck
My poems for this tanka sequence were from a
set originally written in 1996 and 1997. In October of 2016, when I rediscovered these poems, I sent the set to
David Terelinck, who chose four of them and wrote response verses. This sequence was published in Skylark 5:1, Summer
2017, pages 96–97. David’s verses are on the right, in italic.
the hour candle
burned to a stub—
sycamore leaves
swirl through your porch
in an endless circle
the
paleness
of
the poplar’s limbs
before
new growth—
on
hearing she needs
a
stem-cell transplant
after all these years
the oxalis still blooms
and someone still seems
though she’s gone
to be tending the orchard
those
memories
that
seem to cling to us
each
passing year
these
heart-shaped leaves
grow
harder to cut back
for this moment
no creek burble
no wind sound
no bird calls
no beating heart
and
if I step
upon
this moon bridge?
they
say blood
is
thicker than water,
but
what of love . . .
since we split apart
the memory that keeps recurring
is how she lost
the book I lent her
on relationships
how
quickly
a
match flares and dies—
can
anyone
presume
to calculate
the
half-life of love?
|
|