The Half Life of Memory:
What Was and Might Have Been
The half-life of memory
a slow discorporation
like the vessel itself
mortal
as loon song
disappearing
across some northern plain
Suffering a constant loss
that drifting apart of the third law
of thermodynamics
decay filling the expanding space
an almost imperceptible spill
swelling a lake of forgetting
drop by drop
The slippage not stayed
though frozen momentarily
by the black ice of script
written on the dissolving surface
of the minds eye
Image Texts
#1 The Two-Headed Calf (and other myths)
The morning we arrived at the place. Heads smashed in and reeling under
the spinning stars and striped, stripped bare hills. Beyond the bluff that
stony bone-dry ground beckons us. Sniffing the breeze to see which way
the wind blows and dreaming of the past yet to come
#2 More than Just (a little give and take)
I remember the fall and the plow the letting go of the rusted steel the falling back under the wheels above me the high gleam of the shiny polished shear slicing the sod turning like the curl of a wave breaking at the edge of an inland sea Wave after wave taking the land to the depth of a plow (a shallow cut no more) peeling back the layers of skin revealing the flesh of my arm the blood welling up quickly quelled The slow healing leaving another step on the ladder of scars climbing from the wrist to the elbow on it’s inexorable journey to the heart
#3 "Outside the Garden Gate"
Outside the garden gate
closed behind us
the garden fallen away
receding in the distance
our ancient thought
burnished
like thin metal skin
Folded in half
bent in on itself
and back and across
unfolding
at this final fatigue
tearing along the fold
revealing the jagged edge
#4 "To Smoke is to Pray"
In her gorgeous youth
high cheekboned raven
black hair
dark skinned (Spanish blood
my Grannie said)
she smoked
From before my birth
she smoked
As long as I remember her
She smoked
hungrily as if seeking
sustenance pulling deeply
with lips slightly parting
drawing it out and up
into her nostrils
the smoke flowing
like a waterfall
moving up hill
Mesmerized
watching her as she withdrew
into a blue haze
losing her
head surrounded by cloud
Leaving us
A solitary silence
An elopement
far from this farmhouse
on a northern prairie
a world away from her
girlhood
Her only escape
#5 "That Summer Looked Lucky"
That summer looked lucky almost
made In the shade of Canada’s
longest curved wooden bridge
his judgement paid off The girl
from Dawson dairy plump
and proud was on
the bus To the coast
in the night speeding south lulled
by the humming wheels She bit
his tongue when he touched
her breast
At the P.N.E.
they loafed in the barns the air ripe
with the sweet straw
smell of 4-H girls Banged
around the arcade tent
’til the night Birdie landed
in his lap at the Dogwood Room
dance They did
the jerk the band grinding
on and on
Louie Lou why
In their nocturnal shades
that grey summer
light flowing liquid transparent
brilliant Reflections languid
running thru The midway alleys
laughing at his love
"The Half-Life of Memory"
The half-life of memory
a slow discorporation
like the vessel itself
mortal
as loon song
disappearing
across some northern plain
Suffering a constant loss
that drifting apart of the third law
of thermodynamics
decay filling the expanding space
an almost imperceptible spill
swelling a lake of forgetting
drop by drop
The slippage not stayed
though frozen momentarily
by the black ice of script
written on the dissolving surface
of the minds eye