recollection

 

Some say we should live

In the present.

But what about memory

That make up our thoughts

From remote corners

Of the mind?

And from that deep ocean

Arise whales

Sharks and leaping dolphins,

Octopus changing colours.

Like the producers of theatre

We conjure

 Costumes, protagonists, themes

 In vivid detail 

In fabulous dreams.

Thoughts sprout from nowhere

From the distant past suddenly

Transfix one neuron

Into focus on

A personage long gone

As if he were here,

Juxtapose a face to a name forgotten.

Songs follow one another

Before one closes

We can hear the echoes

Of the next one.

We thrive on the past

The structure and foundation

On which the present stands.

We remember

We recall

The deeply imprinted marks

Of our footprints in fossil

Fingerprints in amber

DNA in genes

Without them the present

Would be as meaningless 

As a seizure

Of Alzheimer’s.

The past is indeed 

The present

The present is the past

We cannot live in a present

Never without the past.

Let no one say

The present is all

For we are what is memory

We are what are thoughts

We are what is the past

The present is thus recast.