“Sky and Mountains” by John Singer Sargent
Undo it, take it Back
December 20, 2001
After the September 11 attacks, this 1994 poem came to us at Lilith. The message attached read, “This has brought comfort to many.”
Undo it, take it back, make every day the previous one
until I am returned to the day before the one that made
you gone. Or set me on an airplane traveling west,
crossing the date line again and again, losing this day,
then that, until the day of loss still lies ahead, and you
are here instead of sorrow.
Nessa Rapoport is author of a novel, Preparing for Sabbath, and of A Woman’s Book of Grieving, from which this prose poem is drawn.
