84 Fujiwara no Kiyosuke Ason
If I long should live,
Then may present days
Be dear to me —
Just as past times, though filled with grief,
Gently return to mind.
Poems on the topic: memory
Poems on the topic “memory” on Poets.by.
Eighty-Four
What I now
remember is
your affectionate
surprise that sunny
day, finding me
on the lakeshore.
Eighty
We remember what
we said in the night,
but do the men?
Cabin Fever
Outside the cabin, a smaller, child-size log cabin once sat
next to the driveway. Over the years, a coven of spiders
and wood ticks took it over, the forest slowly staking a
claim, gravity wresting it back into the ground. We never
played there. Who wants cobwebs in their hair, much less
nightmares on the brain? There were bear claw-marks in
the wood, for crying out loud. No telling how many
creatures chewed on that shack, and the fallen pine
needles on the roof left a musty Hansel and Gretel feel.
Little children could get lost in there.
Finally, someone dismantled it, the children grew up, and
the ghost stories surrounding it gradually subsided into
memories of fear we’ve almost now forgotten.
Traveler
I’ve taken the highway, that path that leads from here to
there, from anywhere to everywhere it seems. Over
mountains and valleys, across rivers and streams, I’ve
hitched my way through cities and deserts, from ocean to
ocean, back home and away again. I’ve stood by the road
in the pouring rain, cars rolling by with somewhere to go.
Each time I look in a rear-view mirror, mile markers
passing by, my thoughts drift back to where I started,
when time was on my side.
There is always somewhere to go, something on my
mind, even if that something is nothing more than
venturing into the unknown. I’ve walked away from pain
and into the arms of love, each time the load a little bit
Inside the Gold Mine
The wooden stairs are steep, only about ten of them but
steep. At the foot is Grandma’s canning pantry complete
with carefully sealed Mason jars filled with applesauce,
jams, jellies, watermelon pickles, and other preserves.
Mostly it’s fruit we picked. I like it when Grandma
chooses me to fetch something from the shelves.
To the left is Grandpa’s workbench with an assortment
of tools including a bench-grinder, a couple of rock
tumblers and, my favorite, a handheld black light. We
use it to view the fluorescent stones and minerals in his
rock collection gathered on many trips across North
America. Fluorite, calcite, and hyalite all dazzle in its
subtle glow. Grandpa weaves stories of adventure in with
Bases Loaded
Grass-stains on knees are the least of their worries. The
ball is lost in the hay again. Earlier this spring, they
mowed a large section of this hayfield into a baseball
diamond and then adorned it with torn up bits of T-shirt
carefully arranged to mark out the bases. The infield is
cropped short but the outfield is truly out in the field. The
“hay” is really just a tangle of clover, some sort of
domestic grass and wild strawberries. The game itself is
doomed from the beginning. All attempts to keep the ball
in the infield wind up with the ball in the tall grass. It's
just a matter of time before this comes down to picking
berries rather than looking for the ball.
childhood...
nothing ever measures up
Winter's Bitter Edge
The walking man studies the footprints he’s made in the
freshly-fallen snow, footprints meandering back through
time, back through time with his thoughts. There he finds
a boy playing by a stream, happy as a boy can be. He
walks over and says, “Hello.” The boy doesn’t hear. He
wants to say “remember this” but all he can do is watch
for a while as the child works his way along the bank and
finally out of sight.
His thoughts lead back to a grassy field where a young
man tosses hay bales onto a wagon. The man in the snow
wants to shout “be careful” but again can only watch as
the farm cart passes by. He knows the young man has no
reason to listen to the wind. Turning up his collar, he
shrugs away the cold.
The Next Moment
He watched the leaf drop beneath the horizon and gently
light on the ground. He watched as it became a memory,
lingering there in the blooming sunrise.
one step closer
to revelation ...
a cherry tree blossoms
Baghdad
This city was not a matter for men,
But its river was, as were those who therein dwelt
Much to the surprise of its waters.
If cobalt were the purest of colors,
The Tigris would be not the river of purity,
But the form of purity racing to the sea,
There where it dissolves among
Shipwrecks and algae,
And the great bull whales
That swim southward should the world of man
End there,
There where dawn, no longer part of the night,
Is born.
The emperor thus knows
That in his birth there was a river,
A dream of sweet waters
Marble Torso of a Roman Youth
His flesh, pale as the marble
Fashioned into the destiny of his days,
Is on display in the show window
Of a nearby antiques store on
The Alameda de Hércules.
As for his soul, if he had one,
No one is sure what merchant
Might now possess it.
Two centuries after Christ,
Someone did make sure that a block
Of purest stone render him immortal,
Like the flight of birds
Or the ebb and flow of the tides.
I invited him to dine with me,
To share lamb,
And his story and the stories
It Is Only
It is only a moment of forgotten joy
but it lives none-the-less.
Trees
echo the road
and,
unlike the past,
there is no one waiting for me.
I turn to your memory of solace
and pain, needing something concrete as an anchor.
Walls
greyly shadow
and
take away
the light.
Your letter arked our pasts, protecting old lies
and unremembered betrayals.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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