We walk away from our past and memories pile up behind us, blocks and rocks and shards of bright stained glass. The rising-sun light lifts the colours of the memories and lays them flat in front of us, puddling and lakes and oceans toward the future horizon. We stride or stagger forward, ankle deep in colour.
memory
I wake up early in the morning
I wake up early in the morning and do not understand why you are not here. The bed and the room look strange, perhaps a hotel. I don’t remember checking in. I’ll write you a poem for when you walk through the door. I fold the paper and leave it on your pillow.
I don’t recognise the woman who walks me along to the breakfast room but she seems very friendly. I feel a bit of an idiot that I still don’t remember checking in but breakfast is tasty. They have all my favourites.
Our bed has been made when I get back. I think I left something on it but can’t quite remember what it was. You’ll know, you always do. I’ll ask you when you get back.
As someone once said, a sleep is always welcome. When I wake up, you are not here. I think I’ll write you a poem for when you get back but am interrupted by that nice woman again. She shows me a pile of papers she is holding. What do I think of them? The first one is a poem. It’s rather good, if derivative. I think I may have seen it somewhere before. I look at the others. She has made a mistake! They are all the same! I don’t want to embarrass her so I say I like the first one but am not so sure about the others. She smiles. She’s very pleasant.
I can only get one channel on the TV but that’s ok – I haven’t seen the programme they’re showing. It’s a bit amateurish, some sort of reality thing, but I like the look of the young woman. Lovely smile. I’ll tell you about it when you get back. I’m not sure why, but I’m exhausted. It’s night time already. I’ll write you a poem in the morning.
I wake up early in the morning and do not understand why you are not here.
Remembrance Diwali
In the mid-morning urban silence, a single BANG jerks faces upwards to the sky. The mistimed rocket sparks thoughts of endings and of light.
At first
At first, then, everything was good.
You know how it is.
After the first doubtful unsureness
The awakening the unfolding
The relaxing and allowing.
You know how it feels.
But then later, perhaps one morning or night,
One weekend or absence, something happened
Or was felt to have been.
You know what it could be.
You remember.
Was it one or the other?
It does not matter you know.
The hairline crack of the heart never heals.
What? Time heals?
No, no it does not.
Time covers.
Time covers.
The tattoo on my chest
The tattoo on my chest doesn’t look like you. I should have used a photo instead of a memory. And not done it in the mirror.
Nineteen
Nineteen. Nineteen years today.
If I had had children, you would not have seen them grow up. They would have been a twinkle, a gentle belly swelling, an arrival with tears and cries of joy, school and scabs and scars and almost good enough for the football teams and the ukelele band.
The clothes you knitted they would have worn with love then exasperation and then with a retro swing of the scarf. You would have wiped their eyes when they fell, their noses when they fell ill, their eyes again when they fell in love. You would have been Nan, then Bet for a dare, then Nan to hear the secrets they would not have told me.
And now, nineteen years later, they would have been grown, and away alone, and always on the phone to hear your voice. I miss you mum, for me and for the children I never had.
I dive from the rocks of my now
I dive from the rocks of my now into the sea of my memories. Those I am so desperate to hold twist silver as lightning away from my grasp. Lungs aching, fists empty, I float back to the surface, my tears mixed with the salt. Again from sharp rocks I look down and I see them, peacefully swirling and calm. Again from the rocks I dive into my memories. This time I am so sure.
First published on paragraphplanet.com 22 July 2015
Blue irises
Dev’s failing eyes read the news on his phone. ‘I was painting blue irises in my garden this morning.’ And immediately he was there again, in the sunshine garden, watching her as she painted, her blue eyes fixed on the flowers, her back curved, her shape taut.
He blinked away the memory and focussed on the screen again. ‘I was planting blue irises in my garden this morning.’
It was not her, of course it was not. It was her daughter’s daughter in her red sweatshirt. It was the past now again in his present. As she had always been. And now, now, she was planting the bulbs for the future, the future he had hoped they would see.
Hearts are stronger
Hearts are stronger than memory: memories hold moments, hearts hold the shape of what was there and is no longer.
Remember, remember
Remember, remember,
The 5th of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
And, in the middle of the night,
That thing with the rabbit.
simonsalento 