Do not doubt the faded memory
for the memory does not doubt you.
Rather it simply waits
brooding in the quiet blue hours,
pulling with lazy hands the loose ends of your soul
into its untimely tapestry of moody gatherings
It pushes up from below, the rising
of a great whale in the evening of a tired sea:
slow, ponderous, and inevitable,
dragging with it the crusted barnacles of its weighty years
like the banners of its restless musings
And when you stroll through your day,
unmindful of your deeper waters,
a toilsome, heavy breaching may overturn your tiny skiff,
and suddenly you are swimming in the past
longing just for one smooth, clean breath
unhindered by the heavy density in which you tread
So have a care, if you may
and do not forget your memories,
leave not their edges unhinged,
but weave them with present willfulness
into time-filled tapestry devoid of whim
Then sit, and listen in silence
feel the moon’s tideful turnings
the sun’s graceful arc
and find that long-ago yearnings
have now found their mark