Memory belongs to time; i shall not need to remember
Dunes. I climbed in the sea's thunder, up, up
with aching thighs, and stood on the highest
sand-crest;
Behind, the dusk circle of the mountains;
Before, the burning blue where the earth curves the sea.
But when i turned and slid into the hollow, the sea's voice failed, and time's
Outflung on a floor of sand the color of sun,
in a cup of sand and light, submerged in
light and soundlessness, i forgot you,
Beauty; and all the roads taken and not taken
Ask gulls, if the wastes of the sea, far from
sight or land, where the unheard swell
falls and rises,
Keep this secrecy…
Ask the near-dead, newly returned from the
outposts of silence…
Ask children at their play…
Ellen Margaret Janson, 1949
