A Plea Against Forgetting
These gifts from the minstrels
Arrive in the night unexpected,
Hat in hand,
Hungry at the door.
And it is mine
To lay the plates –
Honeyed bread,
Wine and whiskey.
I am on my knees again –
Requests accompanied by sweet smoke –
To guard against
What I cannot prevent.
Because this moment –
Light bending in fading sun,
Prism eye –
Defines a something beyond the surface,
Reveals irresistible threads
That bind us three.
Time and memory are capricious,
And I can’t explain
How mere seconds
Can conceal so much innocent pleasure,
Or how this could ever be subject
To the habitual forgetting.
But still,
These prayers are necessary.
Engine growls at a high moon.
We are still stomping out the power
That surged through the blue rooms.
I, silent,
I, hands on wheel,
And worried a little
About the light and noise,
Am taken up and in –
The boys were singing,
And my heart bent,
Then broke in the wind’s weight.
And I would carry
That nest of fragile eggs
Forever if I could.
Please, spare these.
And,
If everything else
Must fade,
Must fall,
Must fail,
Let these remain –
Truer than true –
Memories of the minstrels
To carry me through.
