Moments by Harlen Rembert

HM

by Harlen Rembert

The moment is fleeting, impermanent. It cannot be held, despite your wishes. The human sea roars and crashes around me, but my eyes remain steadily on her, the island in the storm.

These temporary moments are personal experiences. Only one person can live a moment. In her deep eyes, I can see the shore. Another’s moment is not your moment, regardless of proximity in time or space. I struggle against the waves, trying to reach her. Its identity is separate. I throw out my hands to grasp the stones, to be saved by her, but they recoil from me. It is because of this that your moments can only be known to you. Gazing longingly, desperately at her, I am sucked under by the crowd. And because your moments cannot endure, you will lose them. Her serene form vanishes into the turmoil. This simply means that all you remember will fade, lost to the world forever. Your unique life will be swept away, as leaves in the wind. The moments that form you, cease to be. I flail helplessly, surrounded by the sea, my hands finding nothing to grasp in the thick of the crowd. I drown.

The memory is the moment.