::Sigh::
Sometimes holidays churn up the silt in an otherwise settled pond.
I used to think that our collective attention span was one of humanity’s greatest problems. Observing our cycle of outrage and amnesia regarding the events of the day, it might easily be argued that if we had just paid attention to things or remembered, we might have saved ourselves any amount of grief. And yet, memory is a hard master, something that younger me didn’t really understand. It doesn’t solely allow us to exert some control over our future actions and reactions by means of recalling past mistakes, no, memory also shines a merciless spotlight on some of the worst experiences of our lives. Total recall? No thank you.
So, thanks for that, for the shadows of time, which blunt some of the sharpest edges of a sometimes painful past.
oblivion
Mercy
Is in snowflakes,
in drifts of attic dust;
Pressing memory’s wound until
it clots.