Remembering
–P.K. Page

Remembering you and reviewing

our structural love

the past re-arises alive

from its smothering dust.

For memory, which is only decadent

in hands like a miser’s

loving the thing for its thingness,

or in the eyes of collectors who assess

the size, the incredible size, of their collection,

can, in the living head, create and make

new the sometimes appallingly ancient present

and sting the sleeping thing

to a sudden seeing.

And as a tree with all its leaves relaxed

can shiver at the memory of wind

or the still waters of a pool recall

their springing origin and rise and fall

suddenly over the encircling basin’s lip—

so I, remembering from now to then,

can know and see and feel again, as jewels

must when held in a brilliant branch of sun.