Sunday, 30 August 2020

D'you Know What I Mean?

 

A certain perfume of sunlit clothes, a soft hand

rested against the splayed green leaves of aubergines;

deftly weighing the merits of flours and sand;

weaving through the sections of old magazines.

Take a perfect stranger’s knuckle, or garment’s fall,

a cloud shape, a landscape. And it’s instant recall.

 

I turn eyes off, I turn myself to face the front

and suddenly the front reels back to a time past.

Though I am strong and resolute, I do not want

to burrow back into times with her. It doesn’t last.

Even when I’m quite convinced it’s under control,

a patch of sound, a pixel, equal instant recall. 

 

Low burning flames. And flares of nothing at all -

a swish of breeze, rainbow grease, that’s instant recall.









12 comments:

  1. Oh yes.
    And scent is so often the trigger. An immediate trigger.

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  2. Sometimes a laugh,or music that she played us to sleep with. Or the reflection of my mouth in that same disapproving line.

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    1. Exactly! the same face looking back back from the mirror sometimes...

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  3. Hi Nila - yes all those - the suddenness of the recall and the lingering of the scent ... and yes we know what you mean - a longing, yet a knowledge that adjustment needs to occur ... a sinking back to reflect and remember. Take care - so beautifully expressed. With thoughts - Hilary

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    1. 'a sinking back to reflect and remember,' how beautifully conveyed, Hilary!

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  4. Believe me. A clothesline takes me back. Seems she was always hanging up to taking down clothes in PA. I dream of it at weird times. Lovely poem that captured it all........nope - just accept the moment and memory and smile!

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    1. Weird times - yes, me too ditto! Trying to accept and smile.

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  5. I think perfume is one of the strongest scents to take us back to a certain time/place/memory. But there are so many triggers and some difficult to take.

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    1. How quick that taking back happens is a shock sometimes. Way too many triggers, yeah.

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  6. Even when I’m quite convinced it’s under control,

    a patch of sound, a pixel, equal instant recall.

    So very true. Lovely lines.

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