Memory and Forgetting
Maybe I am forever changed, or
maybe I try too hard
to "let go" and "move on"
when it all comes down to just doing
what I want --
Issa apparently wrote:
Mother, I weep
for you as I watch the sea
each time I watch the sea.
Do we ever forget those who move our lives so?
All the things I did and wrote years ago
don't seem to help me with today's
unwritten lines.
I ask myself why did I do and write those things then, and
how did I get through the terrible feeling
I could die before I finished each one,
or was it even the same feeling?
Each task I set out again to do,
just to write a few pages,
each starting point with an almost-forgetting
my prior death-struggle, all
so dramatic.
Today I told myself,
I give my permission
not to take up this new struggle
if that is what I want. If that is
how it turns out, in the end,
I will let that be OK.
Let me remember myself
and forget the pain.
It concerns me, still.
It is so hard to trust and hope.
But I am calmer when I
remember myself
and forget the pain
for a little while at least.
(2/20/2011)
