Inescapable
by Sandy Feinstein
Church bells pealed canonical hours,
matins, lauds, praise be for sunrise,
prime, terce, sext
become silent graphics—
pornography time stamped
as a draft,
message sent, received
marked trail
illuminated
minute by minute
one small part of an array
in the right corner
of laptops, phones,
numbers barely sensed
beside the confirmation
of connection: wifi bars,
battery charge,
volume control,
headline and temperature icons
unlike the mad tolling
for the dead felt
in your very bones.
~
Illustration by Mari Firkatian, 2024.
Sandy Feinstein‘s poetry appears most recently in The Scop, The Lake, The engine(idling, The Prose Poem, Willows Wept, Pivot, The Humanities Review, and Seems. Her chapbook, Swimming to Syria, was published by Penumbra Press in 2021. She teaches English, including Creative Writing, medieval literature, and interdisciplinary co-taught courses combining science, literature and writing at Penn State Berks. The natural world informs these classes: whether writing in and about it or teaching it with a biologist.
Author’s note: The poem reflects my interest in the Middle Ages, which I have been teaching for more than forty years. The juxtaposition between how time was then heard and how it is now observed informs the images of what is, “Inescapable.”
Artist’s note: This image reminds me that time is in constant “flow.” In other words time is represented by water, while transitions from one liminal space to the next are symbolized by the archway.
