Memory Project cont.

(Early March, 2011)

Memory as Honesty

What would if mean
If you told her you loved her
But could not recall it?

Can a lifetime of color
Be washed to dull-edgeless gray
In one bad day?

What demon shadow is this
That follows me always
But when I am alone?

I confess I have been untrue.
A heart decided knows
What it has said.

___

Memory as Motion

Mostly I remember the sweat
Of distaste
Of displeasure
Of dispute

Only I am robbed by the stuppor
Of inaction
Of indecision
Of hesitation

Truly I am trouble by the vacancy
Of momentum
Of connection
Of comprehension

Surely I am more than these:
Sweat
Stuppor
Vacancy

___

Memory from the deeper past

The harbor was green and singing then
Untouched
By an iron-clad foot.

It's waters teemed with life
Unfettered
By fear of discovery.

I ran about like a lunatic then
Moonstruck
Mindless of my place

In the order of things
Unfettered
By the bonds of awareness

The harbor and I sang together then
Calling out
The almost unseen dawn

Drawing out the darkness of the woods
Unfettered
By the obscurity and ignorance of night

Memory Continued

June 24

Memory after forgetting

I forgot it was his birthday
For the first time
But remember many in-between.

There were simpler times
When a warm cup of joe
And four lines of poetry
On a frosty moonlit night
Were enough to fill us.

Now of necessity
We pursue money
Mountain tops
Stability.

And those simple times
Are cached like Rhodes Gold
A golden luster
To seek and find
In a different time.

----

I once forgot how to sleep
So busy counting sheep
Coming one by one
Like a rhythmic beating drum
Braying and Baaaeing
Coded messages relaying
Through the window--a sun beam
And then--I slip in to a dream

Memory Project cont.

July 8

Memory as remembrance

The Book says
"Remember, Remember"
Because the author knows
That the reader soon forgets

Busy seeking countless pleasures
And relief from daily pressures
It is not easy to remember
The pain I'm longing to forget.

And yet
I find when my mind
Will relax and remind
Time--

Wherein the words
Of an oft read page
An oft spoken word
From a wisend sage
And the whisperings
Of the dead in their graves

Restore me
To Remembrance

________


Genetic Memory

When Grandpa finished his speech
He was red as a beet
Proud of the light
He had shed on his crowd
And yet on his brow
Hung a little gray cloud
Of self-doubt.

I know this man! I thought
For I saw in the speech
And the response of the crowd
And the doubt on the brow
Like a little grey cloud
But an echo
Of long ago
And presently--me.