名人诗歌|The Blade of Nostalgia

by Chase Twichell

When fed into the crude， imaginary

machine we call the memory，

the brain's hard pictures

slide into the suggestive

waters of the counterfeit^1.

They come out glamorous^{2 and simplified，}

even the violent ones，

even the ones that are snapshots of fear.

Maybe those cosplaytumed，

clung-to fragments are the first wedge

nostalgia^{3 drives into our dreaming.}

Maybe our dreams are corrupted⁴

right from the start： the weight

of apples in the blossoms overhead.

Even the two thin reddish dogs

nosing down the aisles^{5 of crippled trees，}

digging in the weak shade

thrown by the first flowerers，

snuffle in the blackened leaves

for the scent^{6 of a dead year.}

Childhood， first love， first loss of love

the saying of their names

brings an ache to the teeth

like that of tears withheld^7.

What must happen now

is that the small funerals

celebrated^{8 in the left-behind life}

for their black exotica， their high relief，

their candles and withered^{9 wreaths，}

must be allowed to pass through

into the sleeping world，

there to be preserved and honored

in the fullness and color of their forms，

their past lives their coffins^10.

Goodbye then to all innocent surprise

at mortality's panache^11，

and goodbye to the children fallen

ahead of me into the slow whirlpool

I conceal^{12 within myself， my death，}

into its snow-froth and the green-black

muscle of its persuasion^13.

The spirits of children

must look like the spirits of animals，

though in the adult human

the vacancy^{14 left by the child}

probably darkens the surviving form.

The apples drop their blossom-shadows

onto the still-brown grass.

Old selves， this is partly for you，

there at the edge of the woods

like a troop of boy soldiers.

You can go on living with the blade

of nostalgia in your hearts forever，

my pale darlings. It changes nothing.

Don't you recognize me？ I admit

I too am almost invisible now， almost.

Like everything else， I take on

light and color from outside myself，

but it is old light， old paint.

The first shadows are supple^{15 ones，}

school of gray glimpses， insubstantial.

In children， the quality of darkness

changes inside the sleeping mouth，

and the ghost of child-grime

that infinite smudge of no color

blows off into the afterlife