Something outside our own time

Delft 1662

We follow the walls along the canal, moss
wet where the stonesplits never dry out,
arches and thresholds long set before we
ever came into this world. Human smells:
vegetables in a pot; animals and leavings;
tobacco ghosting from windows; the oily
spirings of fish breaking the ship still surface.

When it’s cold like this there is visible
evidence of the moist clocks within us,
the relentless cadence that marches us
towards patient flowers in the fields.
Midway over a bridge, we stop to gaze
down at wavy figures leaning up that mimic
and match our every thrall-held mocking.



The city will never again look as it does
right now. Across the inlet, a man seated
before an easel lifts his head now and again,
regards us merely as shapes within a purpose.
What that purpose is cannot be known for
centuries, perhaps, when we might again be
seen by something outside our own time.

Night will fall heavier than usual, we sense,
so we turn to put the wind at our coat backs.
There are mouths to kiss and feed, bellies to
fill as there are stars to look down and see it
all for what it is. Closing the door, we think on
the man, his paint drying, everything keeping.

Joseph Gallo
December 11, 2012