Memories

What happens when one forgets to forget?

Does memory layer itself one over the other,

Like feathers in a bird’s plumage?

One lying over the other,

Gently crushing older, or memories less wanted.

The brightest feathers stay,

So do the most desolate ones.

The cerebral plumage is often a collage

Of feathers bright and grey.

One wonders, would every bird not want

To have a plumage, bright as the peacock’s.

Why then do those grey thoughts seep in,

Of losses incurred and humiliations encountered,

Of conversations had and words left unshared,

Of faces loved and lost, and lost forever.

Wrinkles visible, weeping voices,

Stories hidden in their rough creases.

Each step, a footprint, grabbing as the sands,

A nail here, a toe there, biting as frost.

And yet feathers layer on, more colour,

And more grey, here a festival, there a farewell.

And a day where festivals are farewelled,

And farewells celebrated as reunions.

With grey on grey, pressuring a plumage,

A nest of monochromatic memories well rested.

Grey ravens call, and dark do the nights fall,

A final flight, a final fight, in search of light,

Reality dawns dark on lonely vanity.

Aging peacocks, shorn of winged glory,

Wings clipped by the blades of memory,

Unforgiving in their sharpness,

In remembering to remember

And forgetting to forget.