THE STORIES WE TELL

Maybe remembering isn't what matters.
Our minds let go of the details, or latch on
to the smallest of them. Was it ever
meant to make sense? Who remembers
which story we told ten years ago?
Ten minutes ago? Go ahead, measure it
in decades, in centuries. You told
your mother that story. You woke
from a dream of her, she put her hand
on your arm. Tell it again, she said.
You had a feeling then, like standing
on the beach and the sand
pulling out from under your feet.
A feeling the world existed in more
than one dimension. We tell the same stories,
all of us, over and over, like runners
covering the same track, or pianists
practicing the same song, the same chord,
the same old, same old scales -- Every Good Boy
Does Fine. And what you would give (years from now)
to hear her tell it one more time?


I just spent an hour revising and posting a poem that I posted last month -- nice concrete demonstration of how we tell the same stories, all of us, over and over. But at least you get a new picture.