Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

Archive

 

 

Volume 11 Number 1, April 2010

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BROWN

 

I'm writing with a brown pencil

because I'm trapped in Copenhagen

under an ash cloud from Iceland,

a cloud I cannot see from here.

But it's certain, Denmark's a prison. 

No one can get out, at least not by plane.

Which is what matters.

The volcano has arrested us

in this part of the distracted globe. 

 

On my walk through the park to this cafe,

a whirl wind erupted in front of me

on the gravel path and soon again dissipated

into budding, brown bushes.

The forces of nature are immense and tiny

and supremely inconvenient.  They kill

and destroy economies and make us fall in love.

We are they; we too turn to ashes and so on

in endless cycles we think we trap in notions of time.

- P.K. Brask