after Mary Oliver

Is the past like a cave memory enters,
words carved in rock?
Or is it like a moth fluttering around
the lit lamp of the mind?
Has it a face that smiles, or is it teary-eyed
when prompted?
It doesn’t care what surfaces.
It divides soul and spirit,
a snake with its feathery tongue sizzling
as it glides underneath
the ferns of perseverance.
Do the earthworm or the dragonfly
live past the moment?
What about the blue-tailed lizard?
Does the camel stuff the past in its humps?
What about the thorns and thistles of love?
What about the mind lost in the past,
begging to begin again?