CENOTAPH

CENOTAPH


standing on the overlook
with a blind view of the valley
this is our stone for the absent
for the dead and the never born
the house without mirrors where
we remember ancestors lost in
the liquid air by the millions
those pale monsters who
staggered out of the sea


November 12, 2011
ERIC BASSO


From email exchange between Eric and I:

Guido wrote:
> Haha, did we have similar frameworks of minds?

Looks like we did, and on the same day! In my poem, "liquid air" is more apt than a reader might suspect. It is, by definition, a heavy mist. It gave me a more musical sound for the line than "heavy mist." The ancestors - those who lived and those who never got to exist - are forever lost to us in it. You see, there is a madness to my method.
EB