Walking Archive

Commit it all to paper,

those of you who are walking archives,

because it's time to admit

that your storage capacity

has been exceeded.

But worse still are the vermin:

just as moisture and silverfish

and bookworms

attack the written record,

so the aging equivalents

(we'll call them "mice" to simplify)

remove what's stored in the head,

eliminate the memories,

whether new or old.

 

If you are a walking archive,

get it all out of the swamp of your mind

and commit it to acid-free paper.

Keep it in a climate-controlled cupboard.

Act as if it is important to retain

this body of memories

and maybe (but don't count on it)

someone, someday,  will actually notice.

 

Alternatively, ignore me.

Let it all evaporate

from your mind.

Walk for your pleasure, not as an archive.

The past has passed.

Let it go.

 

Copyright 2014 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

The Pages Turn

Not so patiently, really,

and with some trepidation,

I watch the pages turn.

 

When it was new, the opened book lay lopsided,

all its pages piled on the right.

Then the wind of life blew in.

Riffling up the paper sheet by sheet

it turned leaves to the left

before my still-innocent gaze.

 

One day I noticed

how very many pages had blown by:

I was well past the middle of the book.

Oh me, oh my!

Time to take it seriously, I thought.

 

But even before I had buckled down

to that task of being serious

more pages flew from right to left

forcing me to acknowledge

my lack of agency here:

this turning of pages was none of my doing.

 

And now just moments later,

or so it seems,

the right-hand pile has dwindled

to just these few remaining pages.

The book is almost finished.

 

Why does the wind blow in one direction only?

 

 

Copyright 2014 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Voice of the Lake

How long would I last

lying, cheek to wood,

on the lake's dock,

sun relentless and hot on my back,

my face pillowed into the folded towel,

which will leave terry-cloth pocks on my cheeks.

 

How long before I would begin to fret:

I'm hot. I'm getting sunburned (I can feel it).

The dock is hard.

I have things to do--

a meal to prepare,

lists to make.

 

Water laps beneath me,

and the wood brilliantly conducts these murmurings

to my ear cushioned on the towel.

The water mesmerized me once,

but would it still?

Have I so filled my self with activity

that what once sufficed

will now not take me away from my endless thinking?

 

Alas, this question is without answer.

I have no dock, no lapping lake.

To test the question I will have to seek elsewhere--

listening to the scent of lilacs, for example.

 

 

Copyright 2014 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com