For Beginnings
When a long supply of city blocks
lies in front of you,
notice how each door you pass
tells a different story.
Funny how the same thing happens
with tinny sounds on thin country roads,
set back on country lanes.
Such is memory — clotted with remembering
and the scrumptiousness of details.
All bringing deliciousness to the past.
Make a turn.
Then another.
To the door used when you were
thinner, and more agile.
It was here appetites were born.
How gracious the mind to fill in
missing bits and pieces
making the meal whole.
There is still bond here
that flies through the air
like ligature.
Welding time and memory at odd angles.
With memories tacked to back doors
and hooked on scents of Sunday morning breakfast
surrounded by high-capacity people.
Memories stitched and looped together.
The axis of the world
ran through that house.
All you need do is
scratch that surface,
or any surface,
to find out what this is all about.
The never-ending game of peekaboo with memory,
warming to a prior theme
of what was.
There are no lines to separate the before and the after.
No corner with a little stripe
to be recalled.
Straighten the back.
Breathe in deep.
Have the shoulders ride a little higher.
Take memories out of the pouch.
The black velvet pouch.
Soft and comfortable
like an old familiar name.
Or old vanilla ice cream.
Pass those memories as if you were a voyeur,
as if you were dream walking.
Can you remember the last time
you closed that door?
Or the time before you could reach the knob?
In a way,
this was the source of original strength.
You are now defined by what is no longer there.
Back then was another kind of time.
Go ahead.
Go up.
See if the stairs will still accept your steps.