Loss of …

By the time I remembered your name
I had forgotten your face,
and then I couldn’t recall
why I wanted to talk to you
in the first place.

Words and phrases bounce,
water off a duck’s back.

They sparkle like a high tide
rejected by the retriever
as he shakes his coat dry
on emerging from the sea.

This book I read is a word parcel,
a clepsydra of droplets
a rainbow strung with colored beads
each scoring a bull’s eye
on the world’s taut literary hide.

Mapa mundi of forgotten lands,
I trace dark landmarks
on the back of scarred hands
and wonder why I have never visited
faraway places with names
I cannot even pronounce.

Tourist guide to a failing memory,
I track the trails of drifting ships
as their white sails vanish,
blank butterflies from a distant summer,
floating over a darkening horizon.

Commentary:

I notice how my memory fails a little bit, day by day. I mis-spell a word. Forget a telephone number. Have to check a recipe three or four times – was it twenty minutes at 400F or 30 at 350F? Then I wonder how many spoons of sugar I put in my coffee. Worse, I forget whether I have taken all my tablets or not. I line them up in order, take them one by one, and still forget whether I took the last one or not. Oh dear.

I make shopping lists and check each item off as I put it in the cart. Then I check the cart to see if I did put the items in. Impulse buying. I haven’t seen Marmite on the shelves for some time now. So, every time I see it I buy it. Now I have four pots of Marmite in the cupboard. Animal Farm – Marmite good, Vegemite bad. And I can even say that in an Australian accent.

I forget words in English, but suddenly remember them in Welsh, French or Spanish. Then I forget them in the other languages as well. Last night I remembered callos in Spanish but forgot what they were in English. I had to ask my beloved and she reminded me that callos meant tripe. Great. I now knew what they were but I couldn’t remember why I wanted to know what they were in the first place.

This afternoon I looked everywhere for my glasses and then I remembered that I was wearing them. I have a little name tag that I wear when I go out. That way I will at least remember who I am. Now, I have just changed my coat – so where’s my name tag? As for my cell phone, I never call myself on it, so why should I remember the number anyway? I guess that’s it for now. I am sure I had something else I wanted to say, but I can’t remember what it was. Oh dear!