The Generation Ship

[JamesG]

The Generation Ship

Time moves backward—
or, its current awaits surrender, seconds losing
measurement:

Here is the bed I was kept from,
as I answered to many names,
though my answers could never be heard
through the voice of a body.

And above, that clear blue window of air
is for looking into the space
ahead and left behind,
the future and past. Yes I remember:
time must be created
to guide the vessel,
not counted.

So long have I placed faith
in a reunion with the self, my sorrow, vespertine
dark of wisdom, under the conditions
of the body's passing, that I counted away
wonderful beings. How
strange it is now
to return to the source—a tear to its oldest ocean, seconds
slowing

into a moment in the waves of forever.
The details of the moment become the remembered dream,
the light for all movement in space.

I like this, and yet I do not think I understand it, at least on a conscious level; not everything is written to be understood of course. It almost reads like it is a translation from another, long-lost language (no bad thing, I am a fan of translated poetry). I really like the lines here, as I have always loved the word vespertine. 

So long have I placed faith
in a reunion with the self, my sorrow, vespertine
dark of wisdom, under the conditions
of the body's passing,

though you might lose the 

that I counted away
wonderful beings.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.