Transience Poem by Jan Sand

Transience



The earmarks of significance
Are delicate. A hundred years
Is not so long ago. Events that kill,
Events that punish, events that destroy,
Die in memory when survivors die.
Events that led up to and through
The first world war have baked
In time's slow heat, become dry.
Intense emotions have flaked away
To leave the ghostly armature.
Our own lives are shaped and structured
By confrontations in our past.
We carry in our flesh the deaths
Of parents, children, friends and pets,
Personalities in politics and film
That laid the landmarks which proclaimed
'This is our world, so are we defined.'
These monuments evaporate,
Leave space to grow an alien terrain.
The Spring of dissolution
When a generation dies,
Melts away the snows of old solidities.
Events in each life
Which we suppose are firm, eternal,
By the strength of their effect
In our memories are fragile,
Shall disappear like pissholes in the snow.

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