We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

18.4.19

Aberrations


Written for Day 17 of Poems in April at 'imaginary garden with real toads' where we are asked to reference the e.e. cummings title: The Mind Is Its Own Beautiful Prisoner


Aberrations

'Don't forget to bring back
my funny little thing,' she said.
Those words. So next time I visited 
I returned the strange-shaped vase
that had held the flowers she gave me.
'Where's my plastic food container
I asked you for?' she said.

'What's this?' she exclaimed, gesturing
at my car. 'You've got a new one?'
'Yes, but you've seen it,' I said. 
'No, never.' So I showed it to her,
refraining from saying it was the same one 
she rode in two weeks previously
when I drove her to visit her daughter.

'Who was it died, in your life?' she asked,
after reading my book of poems.
'Oh,' I said. 'Remember, after we saw 
that Angie McDowell movie, I told you
it was my story too? I told you all about it. 
(You even asked, was it true or fiction.)' 
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I don't recall.'

Wife, mother, grandmother, hostess, 
businesswoman, gardener, traveller,
patron of the arts, and generous friend;
there's nothing wrong with her mind –
except occasionally it cordons off
small sections of itself, seeming to say
privately: 'You don't need that.'


Although this friend is ageing now, she doesn't have dementia; she's always had this quirk.

9 comments:

  1. I love her quirky questions........My brain does NOT retain what I read or the movies I watch...my sister says I only need ONE book and ONE movie. LOL.

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  2. Oh, I have cordoned off some areas of my mind. Definitely a lot of , "I don't need that" to attic clean from my thoughts.

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  3. I like this a lot. Seems we might have one every now and then, sooner than later. "I told you all about it. " Very hurting words, Rosemary. I bite my lip whenever I slip and tell Mrs. Jim those words. But it's true, I deny, say "You didn't tell me." and add another excuse too. I am hard of hearing and really hate to be getting an aid. I think the government will even buy me them for the time I served in the Army fits some priority time for the Veterans Adm.
    ..

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    Replies
    1. I love my hearing aids! Why hesitate?

      And good point – the friend I write of is indeed hard of hearing.

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  4. there's nothing wrong with her mind –
    except occasionally it cordons off
    small sections of itself,

    It is frightening to think that it had crept in slowly and surely. Perhaps writing poetry and such like can help slow down the process. Beautiful thoughts Rosemary!

    Hank

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    Replies
    1. Well, my friend is not a poet or writer. But anyway it is not a process; she has always had this kind of forgetfulness.

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  5. This is such a familiar situation, Rosemary.

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  6. This is such a beautifully evocative write, Rosemary! Although it's a quirk I can't help but wish our minds had the ability to switch off certain thoughts and areas from time to time. Thank you so much for writing to the prompt!

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  7. There is both a comfort that everything is novel to her... and that irritation of having to repeat the statements...

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