Forget-Me-Nots<\/p>\n
When is the best time to remember?
\nI remember the walks, where dad would remember
\nhis old track and field and cross-country days,
\nHannah and dad walking parallel, me in the back.
\nThere\u2019s a syllable of summer in the air, speaking<\/p>\n
clear through the forgetful mess\u2014the sun would
\nrise like spears glinting in the sky, the tentative
\nviolence, the heat of the awakened sun.
\nThose summers at the beach, as you would get
\nout of the water from swimming,
\nevery tuft and tussle and turn of the wind <\/p>\n
would snap at the notched cramps in your side
\nfrom the cold. These walks, teeming with absent concentration,
\nwe\u2019d try to become the person our shadows are, so formulaic,
\nin the angst of memory, walking along the bike trail
\nwhere the leaves would walk behind us in the wind, <\/p>\n
like footsteps. However far we get, when the time
\ncomes, is it better to avoid the mud puddle
\nor leap over it? My notebook would get heavier with
\nnew ideas, stories to memorise. There was
\nold Mr. Yanskas, inviting us into his house on Halloween, <\/p>\n
and I\u2019d wondered if he\u2019d been in a war, or where
\nhis own children were\u2014but his wife gave us candy
\nsimply for spending our time there. I think
\nI was a pirate again that year, or maybe I was a drummer:
\nI can\u2019t remember\u2014funny, isn\u2019t it? <\/p>\n
There were always the walks when we
\ndidn\u2019t want to be cooped up inside;
\nI never even cared if it was about to rain.
\nBack to the prior summer\u2014or every summer, perhaps\u2014
\nthe gleaming speech of the crescent waves would <\/p>\n
curdle and crinkle upon the shore, Hannah
\nnever being allowed to swim out deep; but she
\nmight\u2019ve been better than me at swimming.
\nThe sand would be clothing for our feet
\nin the parking lot. I wonder now, looking over the park rail, <\/p>\n
and out over the lake: a net as wide as the sea
\nwouldn\u2019t be able to capture all the life in it\u2014
\nsomething, some remnant of a memory would escape,
\nno doubt. Only a couple days ago we were watching softball
\ngames down at the civic center\u2014the grass underfoot <\/p>\n
conforming to our steps, the legs of the sun walking with us.
\nAll the memories under the sun are not enough,
\nthey are not my true joy. My legs are taut to the front yard,
\nthe back yard; I must be watching myself from everywhere,
\nrole-playing. But thinking to myself, the little blue flowers <\/p>\n
in the back yard all thrown up in dad\u2019s
\ndirt pile from snow-plowing, they\u2019re still alive and
\nblue. I feel as if I\u2019ll forget them one day, forget everything
\nthat I ever collected to recollect.
\nSpeaking was never an obsession; <\/p>\n
Reminding yourself with souvenirs is not
\nas unshakeable as you think. As July may flourish
\nevery shade of green, August will always burn red
\nin my heart. We never knew what all this oblivious love
\nbetween us meant, but I mean to hold it as a keepsake. <\/p>\n
You can\u2019t bury the weather of yesterday,
\nyou can\u2019t grow tomorrow\u2019s filtering sunlight;
\nbut I\u2019ll find paradise at my desk rather than
\nat the end of smoke. Paradise, you\u2019re a paradox
\nto me, and you won\u2019t stay still, you\u2019re always in <\/p>\n
someone else\u2019s hopes and dreams.
\nHowever misleading my reminiscing will be
\ndown the road, I know this world doesn\u2019t deserve us\u2014
\nI will be me as best as I ought to\u2014
\nhowever long it takes me to remember. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forget-Me-Nots When is the best time to remember? I remember the walks, where dad would remember his old track and field and cross-country days, Hannah and dad walking parallel, me in the back. There\u2019s a syllable of summer in the air, speaking clear through the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9276,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9222\/revisions\/9276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}