Thursday, February 4, 2010

A poem

Light and Memory

Light bounces down the years,
with all angles equal.
Memories are made where it hits,
by light on a film in a camera.
Except that we are the camera box
and our brain is the film.

The angles are equal
So the strikes are evenly spaced.
And from parent to child
memories can pass.
With some overlapping.

But it is information that passes
which we colour ourselves.
With lives and experience,
context and meaning.
Projecting a life.

Does the film stick in the gate sometimes
get too much light and heat?
Blister and bubble inside
while on the screen of our life
the sudden change
jolts the watchers.

Or does the light when it hits
carry some memory away
on the reflective bounce.
Taking a bit more each time
until too much is missing.
Not being replaced by incoming light.

Or the film just wears out.
Meat and bone in the end.
Not made for infinitely
bouncing down the years.
Like light, spreading memories.

10 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Very nice, A.K.

I'm compelled to apologize for the sheep-shagging slag on another thread.

Not to stomp on a metaphor (e.g. Godzilla meets Bambi and all that), but I'm reminded of some actual photographs I've taken that are fading.
~

Hamish Mack said...

Sheep shagging jokes fall off NZ'ers backs like a duck, Thunder. I took no offence and consider you to be a sterling internetter.
The impermanence of memory is what it's all about, innit?

mikey said...

And yet, we can spend decades devoting unlimited efforts and resources to try to forget.

Ineffective, angry, mocking impermanence of memory.

I forget all the things I want to remember, and struggle to forget the things I cannot.

Hamish Mack said...

It's the human condition, Mikey.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Lovely, but you'll have to explain the whole "film" concept to the young 'uns in a few years.

Jennifer said...

This is wonderful. Thanks.

Smut Clyde said...

I'm going to imagine this with Van Der Graaf Generator as the backing track.

Hamish Mack said...

Good lord I wrote it as alternate lyrics for "Waterloo" by ABBA!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Holy Hell, Smut is right. I suddenly hear Peter Hamill reciting it...

Jennifer said...

LOL!