LEST WE FORGET Poem by Peter Verhelst

LEST WE FORGET



As long as we do not forget, then nothing will be lost.

So let's forget, but only
in the way that we by talking can let disappear extremely slowly - there,
you see, can you still hardly see it, straight into the sun?

As long as we do not forget that something of our nothing may be lost, at last -

in the way there is a staying silent that's at once a form of singing
that is a form of bearing, a bearing of a body in this way
that it right through us, as if it's falling forward extremely slowly, something like glass
below skin, brittle glass, perhaps that is the body
that singing like a wine glass
wishes to be silently borne, that we lift it up into the air in such a way
that it keeps getting lighter - there, you see, can you still see it, hardly,
straight into the sun?

Perhaps the colours into which the light refracts
will take us home again.

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