I thought I caught it last night—felt the verdant warmth against my palms
but in the morning, fresh petrichor misted stone earth
as fat blue raindrops wept on powdery soil
dry with yearning, quiet with tired
Surrender to memory and the way it fills you with dread:
the evergreen will die in roves,
your green forest will rot and dust, hinges will rust
with unuse—warmth will rupture and bleed, soft leaf will fall
and crust. Surrender
to time, and the moments it holds
yours for now in a forever way—
when some forevers away, the sepia dress
that holds your neckline and nips at your waist
lies in a dusty attic
moth-eaten and molten forgot
will it yearn for you in a forever-way
in the forever-dusty sunlight it lives in?
You, not the you who is awash in time but who
leaves it wholeheartedly on your doorstep?
You, who are a glutton for moments
and the incident angle of sunlight
streaming through bare branches?
and You know what happens in the end
because life is the history of a tree in winter
but in tonight’s moonlight,
you will be new and fresh anew. Yes.
Spend forevers chasing
tides, drawn back by languid moon
let them wash over your ankles
drink them in with your eyes
Spend forevers chasing tides,
hear them break against the rocks
let them remind you that there is memory here on earth
and only blue forgetting sustains an evergreen.
Writer | Katelyn Parrott ‘27 | kparrott27@amherst.edu
Editor | Gabriella Avena ‘25 | gavena25@amherst.edu