Some days are too calm to remember, but
The jury’s still out on whether this is one of them.
The most amazing thing about memory is
That it combines the distortions of all story
With the bare-naked honest surprise of still
Being, still going on after so much has gone.
A few days ago the unwritten poem was thinking
How those who go early before us haunt us not
Because they return but because the others
We knew when who had the sense to remain
Bump into us, altered, as we, too, have altered
And are altering, but continuous again, somehow,
Easy to recognize but hard to define. I saw
Three elderly professors, white heads huddled,
Whom I had first encountered when they were
Only grey and I only entering middle age.
There they were, it seemed to me, the same
Or sufficiently similar persons to the ones
I met, with my wife, fifteen years and a bit ago,
My new wife then, young as me, now more
Than a decade wholly gone. The professors
Murmured amongst themselves as I came near,
Discussing their best new students, their latest
Findings, and I remembered what she thought
Of each them, whose thoughts are ash in an urn.
No comments:
Post a Comment