Pentimento
Paradise redeemed, this gentle amnesia between fire and quake.
Effortless in leisure’s honeyed light, guests play unaware.
Native Chumash once hunted deer beneath the putting green.
Time preserved in light and shadow. We are here. They were here.
Invisible in the liminal—changelings toil behind the scenes.
Memories of ancestors forgotten on cave walls.
Earth’s story foretold in prophecy, rewritten.
Nature left to her defenses—everything must perish. The Arlington
Theater rises where its namesake once stood, a stage for standing
Ovations—the air echoing with applause before the next erasure.
After the Edson Smith Photo Collection Arlington Hotel grounds, circa 1920
Susan Chiavelli is the recipient of the Chattahoochee Review’s Lamar York Nonfiction Prize for “Death, Another Country,” also named a notable essay by Best American Essays. Her prose and poetry have appeared in Paradise, Elsewhere, The Los Angeles Review, Miramar, San Pedro River Review, The Packinghouse Review, Library Book, SALT, Shoreline Voices anthologies and elsewhere.