today is cold and rainy. i just wrote my mom about how i'm longing for a fireplace & some good book-time. i also copied down this poem for her, because i love it and it makes my heart ache a little in the best sort of way. the title is, i need not mention, is oh-so-applicable to me. thought i'd get that in before anybody else did.
Forgetfulness - 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.
*****************************
sigh. isn't that beautiful? i love how it switches from forgetting things from your lifetime, to forgetting an ancient love song that your heart used to know. it speaks of a feeling of longing for a home you've not yet been to. i believe our hearts "remember" paradise, and life can feel like one long forgetfulness - but one day, we will remember! hope this finds my mom, as well as you all, growing - hopeful - and "remembery" of the truest love-song. i am remembering the sound of tropical rain on a tin roof. my soul takes a deep breath at the echo's of that thunder.
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