I Only Remember Remembering

By John Herlihy

I only remember remembering,

Not the details of June or September.

Brief flashes of insight come with no pretending,

The sharp edges, the harshness hard to remember.

Home was a place way back when,

Gone much of the memory that happened then.

Now I take home with me deep inside,

All the happy memories come along for the ride.

Who remembers the reason that caused me to cry,

The wings that lifted me at times into the sky,

The heavy burden that dragged me down into despair,

All the entreaties I made to God in desperate prayer?

An old lover now faded into the past,

 Intense emotions never destined to last.

Those pure moments of love seemed forever,

Until love’s passion passes, remembered never.

Early childhood sadness now totally forgotten,

Sitting nestled amid colored autumn leaves remembered.

The treasured moments I had with my best friend,

Now I can’t remember what brought us together in the end.

I now monitor my life by the places I have lived,

All the details of what happened in those places short-lived.

I remember remembering how I was once betrayed,

The details have now slipped my mind, but the memory stayed.

Forgetting needs no remembering and so needs no regret,

Perhaps we should live our moments to the fullest, then forget.

Even now, in my old age, I sometimes forget to remember,

Until the floodgates open again to the days of June and September.