Holocene – a poem by Robert Ford

Holocene

The shoreline has no recollection of the ice;
only the genetic memory of suffocation, smothering,

of cold, silent fingers playing at the clay of the Earth,
sundering rocks. There are only echoes, hearsay,

the whisper of older waters – receded, replenished –
forests, hills, a whole continent swallowed below.

Becoming a pixel in the image, a word of the story,
I press footmarks through a knotted dunescape

to arrive, human, upon it, eyes finally registering
only in the present tense, shouldering my own tide.

Robert Ford‘s poetry has appeared in print and online publications in the UK, US and elsewhere, including The Interpreter’s House, Brittle Star, Butcher’s Dog and San Pedro River Review. More of his work can be found at https://wezzlehead.wordpress.com/