Old age approaches threshold of innocence
easing it’s way for memory to slowly fade
soundless like a star falling from the sky
a swan in the river.
Soundless
2
Tag Archives: memory
misplaced memory
A woman wearing a multicolored scarf
waits for her friend in the Flower Fields
on the wrong day.
photos: Flower Fields in Carlsbad,CA
sorrow
sorrow travels with crowd
releases its arrow
when you look back
In trying to remember
a plough stands in the yard
remnant of the old farm
my rusted mind
remembering
“Run and be free.
Look both ways
before crossing the street”.
My instincts
but sometimes I forget.
I’m so absorbed
with Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
or when I’m in the middle
of a thousand projects
and I’m running
through “a maze
of twisting little passages”.
It’s not all these things.
I have changed
since the cherry blossoms.
When I see any flower
my memory of you returns.
who keeps the memory
Stars overwhelm the sky
with brightness.
Who will know the night
has one less star?
When I die
will my soul
keep the memory
of my love for you?
edges of things
“The moment of magic”,
that first line of thought
that comes unexpectedly.
I remember you telling me
you become attentive
“more loving, more courageous”
the moment will come
like “a baby deer trembling in the woods”.
I remember you telling me
“in any field, cognitively demanding fields,
there are no naturals.”
I remember your fondness
for toasted baguettes with dungeness crab dip.
I remember you telling me
you like to sit on the “edges of things”
or roam “landscape of chaos”
looking for stones one will remember
or enter new conversations
and plant “little futures”.
I will not see you anymore
sitting under the palm trees,
every morning, with a cup of coffee,
holding a pen or reading a book
a graph ruled notebook at your side.
Now and then
your absence will become
a presence in my memory.
You may return one day
like a moment of magic.
I barely know you.
missing words
Difficult to miss
even in a crowd
-a unicorn
I met a girl once in a cafe
over a cup of coffee
on a Wednesday afternoon
she published a book
of 51 poems
an odd number
like an unfinished lunch,
reminds her of hunger,
hunger to write
Her bearing, full white
blouse,slacks, a cap
over black pony tail.
A day unfinished
like a poem
with words missing.
I could not read
her books of
I didn’t know her name
or contact her
I didn’t know her
Where is the land of the unicorn?
Doctor’s pretty phrases
heart murmur’s crescendo and decrescendo,
cognitive deficits, butterfly rash
What if I remember my wife’s benevolent
face and where I place my hat?
Bees have memories
and age like me.
What if it’s a bee
with cognitive decline?
What will a rose look like
when the bee leafs a garden album?
Will the bee visit me and my wife,
our Wednesday’s picnic at the park?
Will it brush her face,
mistake her ear fo a hive?
Will the bee ride the opposite
flow of scented breeze?
How will the bee feel when dawn
lights each row of rhododendrons?
I wonder how the bees stream
sequencing of flowers, gathering of nectar.
I was taught once the path of enigma:
“It is when I am weak that I am strong.”
With each deficit, renewal
each bewilderment, revelation.
Will the bee find
the hidden holiness?
Is there a perfect equivalent in the bee world?
“My goodness, I’m glad you are here.”
When sunset comes will the bee ponder
the existential home: was, is, will be?
Note: Mrs. Abstract and I will miss the live demonstration next Saturday by the ladies of Tea Passage at the Grand Hand gallery in Napa on the fine craft of furoshiki, Japanese cloth wrapping.We are up in the mountain for Thanksgiving and huddle like the bees.
photo: of teabags is from a page of Napa Register news
Missing strings
The absence you touch in my mind
like the green smell of grass mowed.
But what is it that comes
when the rain falls at night
I remember music of mandolin
with missing strings?
I try to create a space
when the river tide rises
I climb up to the upper room
and from the window
I watch the wind
whips fear away from the trees
as if comforting them.
Last night I walked along the river
the winter cold was not crisp as it should be.
The sidewalk.
They were gone
the dining tables with blue glasses
and pink chairs.
You smiled admiring the colors
last summer.
