Meeting Place

By Ken Duffin

11 September 2006

[Editor's Note: Many thanks to Ken Duffin for giving us permission to reprint his work for a limited time in conjunction with Greg Beatty's "Reading the Rhysling."]

Not in my lifetime, nor that of my sun;

but beyond the final collapse when

the last static ashes and

clinkered proteins bleed

slowly, from the microcracks of the next

cosmic egg—then

and there will spin

the tiny helix, eternally recurring,

lapped by pale and teeming future seas.

Perhaps we'll meet?

Say yes;

say . . . an eon from now,

beside the gently sloping banks

of the gene pool. Come

as you were,

and I'll bring the wine.

(Comments on this piece | Poetry Forum | Main Forum Index | Forum Login)

Ken still writes, albeit at a slower pace. He is putting the finishing touches on a collection of short stories and has begun work on a novel. His day job involves working with at-risk children and patrolling the playground, keeping the peace. He and his wife Glenda have been married for thirty-four years, and they have one son, Patrick. Ken won the 1981 Short Poem Rhysling Award for "Meeting Place," which originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction in November 1980. This poem, along with Rhysling winners from 1978 through 2004, can be found in The Alchemy of Stars.

Top