Path in the Roman Campagna by Giovannie Battista Camuccini in the 1840s. Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum.
Long: a measurement; the distance it takes to remember.
Remember: everything that had to fall.
Fall: the end of summer’s tyranny.
Tyranny: some part of us we could not love.
Love: absent from a bruise; a god who makes promises and threats with rain.
Rain: it easily insists; a way through a crack.
Crack: there had been warnings; a sound heard when the truth arrived.
Arrived: at the foot of history with smirks on our faces.
Faces: vaguely appearing in clouds; their knowing mercy.
Mercy: this new world.
World: oh, how it gives; a bed of return.
Return: survivor’s dread; in a cold sweat, someone dreams of country.
Country: no; never again.
Again: an american frequency.
Frequency: the marrow of pursuit; the speed at which sound travels.
Travel: to leave a thing behind; we imagined our feet which created a path.
Path: the history of this moment; a trail; a road; short, or long.