Late Winter Still Life, 1960

 

There is this moment in space that I

continue to bend back over

myself, one that I had mentally marked,

saying, “I will remember

this moment.” Today I’m flipping time in

on itself, connecting two

points into a single moment again,

folding forty years of distance,

even though I cannot explain the point of

either. Points are elusive.

It was late winter. There was no snow.

My face was stung red.

I was positioned solemnly in the street

in front of my house

leaning into the hard strokes of wind

with a confidence that has

disappeared with age. I don’t

remember arriving or leaving,

just being there. Gunmetal grey sky

slashed with deep cuts

like rips in a coal vein that has

been there forever, waiting to

be discovered. I distinctly recall

thinking how much I mattered,

not how little. My clothes were tinged

with late afternoon frost,

my plaid red jacket hooked and closed

with clasps that clipped

together with a magic trick, my frozen

right shoelace undone,

worn grey corduroy pants with an

ironed on patch over the knee,

rising tide above the ankles. It was

a distinct thought. “Remember

this moment”. Mark it. Tell yourself that

you will never forget.

“Remember this moment”.

Imbed it so that

it would remain, for

If I lived long enough, I would

to be able to say that I thought

this thought. Did I make a pact

with God and promise that I would

never forget. Had the final errant

bird on the high voltage wire,

whose perfect stillness had caught my

attention make everything perfectly clear?

I do recall that the air was frozen and

that the angels could not fly.

George Korolog is a poet living in Woodside, California. He works in the left hemisphere of the world with a right hemisphere brain. Somehow, he makes it work. His poetry, flash fiction and non-fiction have been widely published in over forty print and online journals such as Word Riot, Forge, Punchnels Magazine, Naugatuck River Review, Blue Fifth Review, Poets and Artists Magazine, Red River Review, Poetry Quarterly, Connotation Press, The Chaffey Review, Thin Air, Grey Sparrow Journal and many others. His poem, From Tending Sheep to Confusion on the Amtrak 10:50 was awarded second prize in the 2011 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest. He was a runner up for The 2012 Contemporary American Poetry Prize for his poem, Soul Stone. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and is an active member of The Stanford Writers Studio. His first book of poetry, Collapsing Outside the Box, was published by Aldrich Press in November 2012. His second book, Raw String will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2013 and he is busy working on his third book, God’s Avenging Concubines.