In my dreams I can never
find my way back,
rooms filled with my precious
things vanish like haiku,
like silk bridges of dewy
spider webs, glistening, fragile
beacons across the vacuum
of memory loss.
My mind is full
of strangers packing to leave,
faces I no longer recognize,
no more than celestial echoes
I feel must have once been
tender to me as altocumulus sky.
Why is it the regrets stay, multiply,
their steam trunks and duffle bags
overflowing as junkyards
amidst a background shush of ocean,
whispering it’s almost time,
almost time to forget
my own name
in exchange for drowning in salt?
Click here to read Lana Ayers on the origin of the poem.
Image by Bhavna Sayana on flickr.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
Lana Ayers:
As a poet, I’ve always felt it vital to share the emotional truths in my life in verse. It’s my way of reaching out to others to say we’re all in this together. Lately, it’s been more difficult to do just that. Firstly, because my mental faculties have been declining for over a year now. And yet, I feel somewhat lucky because I have been able to write poems despite experiencing the loss of so many words I used to know and the ongoing draining of my well of knowledge and memory. I have to keep researching information I once possessed and easily could access. Things like what’s the word that means a group of ladybugs or how far is the moon from the earth in miles? And secondly, although I know I shouldn’t, I feel shame about my situation. Telling people what is happening to me isn’t easy. Ironically, in this last year, I have had more success placing individual poems and book manuscripts than ever. Part of these publication achievements has to do with the urgency I feel to keep making and sharing art for as long as I am able. None of us has forever or knows what tomorrow may bring but I am grateful to still be crafting poems and grateful for the opportunity to share my work today. Poetry creates a compassionate community of belonging. And even when I won’t recall them any longer, my poems will still belong to the poetry community.
Lana Hechtman Ayers shepherded over 150 poetry titles into print as managing editor of 3 presses. Her poems appears in One Art, Rattle, Peregrine, and elsewhere. From her home in Oregon on clear, quiet nights she can hear the Pacific ocean whispering to the moon. Visit her online at LanaAyers.com
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