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Ouroboros Frayed
a concrete poem
Have you noticed how Covid messed up our sense of time? Somethings seem like they just happened yesterday, only for us to discover they happened a year ago while something that just happened feels like it occurred months ago.
The photo above is my first concrete poem — a poem shaped like its subject — inspired by this phenomenon. Thank you to Alison McBain and the editors of Fairfield Scribes for not only publishing my poem in their issue #9 of Scribes*MICRO*Fiction but for keeping true to its form.
The poem is meant to be read horizontally, but fragments of it can be read in any direction. Just like the times we’re living through, these fragments sometimes make sense and sometimes don’t.
I choose the ouroboros symbol because of its depiction of a dragon or snake devouring itself to illustrate the eternal cycle of renewal — of life from death.
Covid disrupted our belief that time would continue on as it always had, that humans were somehow immortal, and shook our very being to the point that time felt it was unraveling — shredding our sense of well being along with it.
I don’t know if time will ever feel seamless again. What I do know is that very few of us will take it for granted now in the wake of this devastating virus.
And while we’ve been shaken to our core, I hope that fear will not turn us into mean, impatient, hopeless creatures. Instead, I hope we become more caring and compassionate. That we will embrace now.
Each one of us has a special and unique gift to give. Covid showed us we don’t have forever to present it to humanity. May we all seize today and shine for each other.
Namaste.
© 2021 Mary Keating
