Our time here is about to be
Invisible
And yet we believe
Ours are indelible marks
In the registers of the universe
What would you bring with you
If you could
A scent of pancakes, butter and syrup
Music
Flowering trees
From the woods behind the house
The memory of the mouse
That made your son jump
And run from the kitchen
Would you remember the power of itching
The power of feeling horny
In eighth grade
Would you remember the school bus
Your bed unmade
That one terrible grade
From the teacher with the weird skin
Would you remember the way you were taught
The concept of sin
And then had to unlearn
The idea that you would burn forever
In some dim place
So far from God’s face
That you would not remember
Your own grace
Or would you remember
Laughing so hard
Once in Jamaica
In a pool
That you felt yourself unspool
Into the absurd
Self-perpetuating ‘yes’
That comes in the middle, sometimes
Of a mess
Like your brother’s spastic sneeze
At a funeral
Which made the whole family burst
Into the wrong emotion
As if cursed by mirth
Will you remember Colin Firth
Playing Darcy
Or will you remember the book
Will you remember how once
Your husband gave you that look
And made you think
Ah, that man is about to make me
Feel that Jane-Austen feeling
Will you remember the angels
On the ceiling
Of that place in Paris
You stepped into
Out of the cold rain
To drink champagne
And eat escargots
It’s hard to know
Which thoughts, feelings, dreams
And random happenings
Will make the trip
Maybe none of it
Will slip past the veil
Maybe we have to leave it all behind
An epic fail
To keep the entire contents
Of the seemingly so important mind
All of it
Wiped clean
Or maybe even the feeling
Of a whole new machine
Nothing to keep
Or port over
Just the expanse of the ‘I Am’
With none of the ‘I Was’
All of the ‘to be’
And none of the ‘because’
Because we really don’t know
How it will go
How it will stop
How it will end
Or continue
It’s a lottery
That gets to win you back from yourself
A golden ticket
You just stick it in your pocket
Until you rocket out of your body
Slow or fast
Into something that has no past
No memory
No pain
And if you’re asking
When do I get to do it again
Who could be that clever
Live now
Or live never
Before you cease
And start to un-live
Forever
© 2022 Julie Flanders
April is Poetry Month Day 28
October Process 