Kay Ryan – Feb 21, Iyengar All Levels

I loved this. What do we lose if we “restore” the world to a Pre-Covid moment?

ALL SHALL BE RESTORED

The grains shall be collected

from the thousand shores

to which they found their way,

and the boulder restored,

and the boulder itself replaced

in the cliff, and likewise

the cliff shall rise

or subside until the plate of earth

is without fissure. Restoration

knows no half-measure. It will

not stop when the treasured and lost

bronze horse remounts the steps.

Even this horse will founder backward

to coin, cannon, and domestic pots,

which themselves shall bubble and drain

back to green veins in stone.

And every word written shall lift off

letter by letter, the backward text

read ever briefer, ever more antic

in its effort to insist that nothing

shall be lost.