Sketch

Sketch my life lightly
On the back of the world.
Lay me like a moth or pollen,
Or a shadow on a wall.
I will abide, yet leave no mark.

How long, or how hard
Would you have to live
To grave a mark on granite?
A life like a glacier,
Perhaps to gouge a glyph.

I cannot bear a glacier's
Life. I hang between
Moth and tortoise.
I neither build nor destroy.
I garden. I brood. I shine
My brief day and slide
Away, leaving no mark.


Betsy McKenzie
Dec. 31, 2009