Bookshelf: An exchange

Memory: Part 3

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An exchange: Memory

I am excited to publish Part 3 of An exchange, the side of Poetry & Process where artists explore a topic through an exchange of their art.

This month’s exchange is on Memory, a series of six pieces written over the past six months, poems from Brian Funke, author of Poetry & Process, and essays from Ann Collins, author of Microseasons. The six newsletters will be published in pairs over three weeks, each touching the topic of Memory , and each built from an aspect from the prior piece.

I hope you enjoy this collaborative effort on Memory.

Memory: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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From Memory: Part 2…

I like to think that each of us has a Library of the Mind, filled with thought-poems, where the stanzas and verses have no end. These great shelves contain the living, breathing scenes from our human lives, stretching backwards and forwards through time.

But time does not move in a straight line, does it? Time moves in a fluid way—it whirls into landscapes, always dissolving and re-forming. So too, memory is not linear. It spirals and twists and loops back on itself.

The Library of the Mind is written and re-written, over and over again, in the cannon of memory.

Ann Collins

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Bookshelf

Brian Funke

Photo by Jackson Films

It’s sort of like this,

Shakespeare wrote of love and 
Pablo turned love into letters and
you read love on the back
of your eyes,
noon sun on bare shoulders
lead wherever
she goes, still
glistening
in the front of your mind,
two fingers trace
the top of the spine
and a glint in her
grin she throws back to you,
salt on your lips and 
you read the last page
then find chapter one
for you know a prologue
cannot be written before
the finale,
and while you desire
a particular end
chapter two will be
penned tomorrow,
so tonight you shelve
each volume
with hopes of an encounter
in your dreams.

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This quick poem explores love through the eyes of one who is falling in love, placing this romantic story with its recent memories alongside books already written (volumes by William Shakespeare and Pablo Neruda) and desire of things to come, memories that are yet to be penned!

What strikes you, speaks to you, or stirs in you after reading this piece? We hope to see you in the chat!

Part 4 will be published tomorrow. May you remember the things to come…

Brian

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