And the Time Is: Poems, 1958-2013

Prior to Oblivion

257 Prior to Oblivion Even the totally forgettable forgets to be forgotten. Calling this regrettable but so, we live with echoes. How often have we fretted to recall a name, phone number or a face and come up blank? Since no one likes what’s unacceptable, we blame the failure on fatigue or senioritis, but the cause is simpler than that. Remembering four digits in a row is easy. Eleven is harder but possible. Forty’s hopeless . . . That’s how it is with memory. It chokes on gluttony and rids itself of dross by dumping the excess. If names and numbers vanish in the voiding, what’s the loss? Because the mind is made to make itself up and choose, the lesser trivia must go. Knowing that the Great Wall of China is one thousand miles longer than America is wide is certainly of interest. Noteworthy too that St. Augustine lived faithfully for nine years 258 with the mother of his bastard son. But these are facts, just facts. If we remember everything that’s past, we’ll fatten with data or be sluiced away like flotsam in a flood. Summering hummingbirds know better. They flash through space in perfect symmetry. They savor only the important flowers. The rest are noticed but ignored. Why name the many or the few they favor? Better to stress how steadily they hover like tops kept spinning in place at full speed until they’re ready to power down, ponder and choose. ...