Couldn't resist this photo. Love it.
Forgetfulness
By Billy Collins
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I'm there. I can barely remember my name most days.---
1 comment:
I heard Billy Collins interviewed on the radio once, and he seemed interesting, but I've never read anything by him. Do you own a lot of books of poetry, or do you do most of your poetry reading online?
I've thought much about your kind offer of moonflower seeds. I had anticipated removing a variegated Euonymous japonica (lots of plants here have japonica in their names) that grows by my back porch, and where it is would be the perfect place to plant moonflowers, but after standing still, growth-wise, for the six years since I planted it, the shrub appears geared to take off in a big way, so I just can't bring myself to murder it, and I have no other place for moonflowers where they would show to advantage.
By the way, you can always respond to my comments to your posts on your blog because anytime I comment, I request notifications. I suppose I might forget at times, but it would be surely be rare.
We might share email addresses, and this would allow us to share things that we might not want to put on our blogs--photos of my yard would be something that comes to mind for me. If you want to exchange email addresses, I just enabled comment moderation on my blog, so I won't allow your comment to appear.
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