Memory Follows

By Cliff Lake

 

Memory Follows

 

The fading paint of memory.

Time becomes a distance,

Increasing with or without the footstep,

A retreat in minutes and hours,

Of days and finally years,

Hazy,

Unclear,

But coming into sharp clarity at times,

Only to retreat again.

A distance traveled now in thought,

Slighted of deed.

 

The failing paint of memory.

Sights and sound going gray,

Indistinct and muddled,

Yet inseparable from the self,

A skein beneath the skin,

Holding one together,

A connection to what was,

Is no more,

May never have been,

And makes you what you are.

 

The falling paint of memory.

Exposing nothing beneath,

Our being counted in a continuous past,

Created in moments unheld,

Looked back upon

With the measuring eye,

That may see clearly,

Or may diffuse that glimpse,

Seeing splendor that is not,

Or tragedy that has broken one,

Or creates a strength of will unlooked for.

 

The fallacy of memory.

An untrustworthy maze

That may have no end,

Or leads to false realizations,

Fantasies begotten in dark recesses,

Broodings unspoken and multiplied,

Fragments fleshed out of delusion,

Or want.

Any of us may succumb…

 

The fact of memory:

None of us would be who we are without,

Yet we carry much,

Imagine more,

And can no more unburden ourselves of it,

Than we can climb from our skin,

And in the end,

There is memory

We would not choose to escape.

We are who we are,

And memory follows.

 

Cliff Lake 2/7/2025

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2025

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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