Numbered Exercise in Eulogy

by Sheryl L. White

I will write 39 lines, longer than I have left
in this endless preponderance of no time,
no thought but that one, that prologue
to all sunsets I have gathered into, light
left lying beside headstones that mark
time, again time. Now I will write 33 lines,
a shorter mourning run, quieter than feathers
that pass on the other side of glass, silent ghosts
like dust settling on lawny crusts, shadows
on clear days. My clearest day was that one –
you remember, a celebration of snow, brief grace
found in a cemetery, tucked on a hill purpled
with violets, beside some other memory, some
other name, not one spoken in books, not any name
screeded under a marble willow bough, no.
I will write 24 more, slide each line by your eyes.
Along with 23, 22, the number plumbed until
it sinks into the past, and 21 becomes the mistress,
an age of attainment, majority, legal limits
revenged on each new generation to keep up,
impose their own limit on you, on me, on
time’s limitation, while on they go, attained,
legal, certified. Still, you sit unresponsive,
deaf to the last lines of your own history. Now,
15 once again, 14, while this untenable speed
backwards stuns until I crawl out –
aged shell back into fresh skin and bones,
no longer a need for plot, grave, urn,
long enough, and I will become one
with the mother, father, egg, sperm, cells
so tiny no given can match simple need,
love, even love, abstract homilies set down
when 7s were created unequal, fraught
with burdens of age and animal, tree, rock,
war, and its illusive counter. Each has its day,
its line in the book, its own vein to feed on,
succour when time runs out, clot when sounds
cease. All the world falls dark. Remember
what began long ago? Then. I will write.