In “Memory,” the speaker lies in a hospital enduring weeks of surgery, pain, and thirst. As the body suffers, the mind reaches back to the fruit garden of childhood. The remembered place is intensely alive: apple trees heavy with pink blossom, an old plum tree, grapevines on a sunny wall, currant and raspberry bushes. These images press through the “black storms of pain” like a refuge.
The poem creates a mood that is both desperate and tender. The speaker’s body and soul “clutch” at cool, juicy fruit as if memory itself could satisfy thirst. There is comfort in the vivid recollection, but also a sense of longing, because the garden exists only in the mind. The “parched mouth of the brain” suggests that remembering is a way of surviving agony, yet the satisfaction is imagined, not real. The poem captures how memory can become a powerful, almost physical escape.