The Science of Forgetting
is a difficult discipline.
A woman may study it for years
and get no further along
than misplacing
last week's tears.
Deconstructing a memory
is an engineer's fright.
Remove two weight-bearing
steel eye beams' sight
and the roof falls in, with
plaster dust in lungs smelling
thick as yesterday's loving;
a month, a year, a decade swelling
up later, liquid in feverish coughs.
Touch only the tip of the cornerstone---
the burnt bridge flies back
from the black Unknown
so that ghosts cross it easily,
notes play, that particular song;
and it's all to live over again,
over again, all wrong.
The science of forgetting
should instead be our religion
where faith can clean the memory,
and forgiveness our
decisions.
~November 2013
posted for real toads
A Birthday in December: Christina Rossetti
Kerry presents us with a challenge to write to the poetry of British Victorian poet Christina Rossetti, a personal favorite of mine. I was unable to come up with a sonnet or roundel, but did manage some rhyming.
Images: The Gate of Memory, and Golden Head, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Public Domain via wikipaintings.org