What I Forgot to Mention
By Lawrence Raab
Things fall apart.
First a chair, then a table. We can see
the roof needs replacing,
the garden's overgrown. How easy
to think only of obligation,
to talk for hours and say
nothing surprising. One afternoon
a neighbor's tree is struck by lightning.
It falls. And the maples shelter tiny insects
chewing on their tender, folded buds.
Then it's summer. All the convenient emblems
--flowers, seasons, rivers --
shrink a little in the heat, that cruel
weather I wasn't going to speak of.
But you, dear, what did you remember today?
Oh, the mind leaps backwards
and we shrug it off: just one flower,
nameless, bent toward water.
We were walking by and you picked it
out of sympathy. Or you let it stay.
Long ago the petals fell off.
Why think of it? That stain of purple,
so small it could mean anything.
First a chair, then a table. We can see
the roof needs replacing,
the garden's overgrown. How easy
to think only of obligation,
to talk for hours and say
nothing surprising. One afternoon
a neighbor's tree is struck by lightning.
It falls. And the maples shelter tiny insects
chewing on their tender, folded buds.
Then it's summer. All the convenient emblems
--flowers, seasons, rivers --
shrink a little in the heat, that cruel
weather I wasn't going to speak of.
But you, dear, what did you remember today?
Oh, the mind leaps backwards
and we shrug it off: just one flower,
nameless, bent toward water.
We were walking by and you picked it
out of sympathy. Or you let it stay.
Long ago the petals fell off.
Why think of it? That stain of purple,
so small it could mean anything.
