Unexpected Memories

Memories are vacant

I have no longing for the past

A recipient of a happy childhood

Still, I have no desire for the good old days.

Growing up on a chicken farm

Fresh vegetables from the garden

Room to play in sunshine or snow

Is a life I rarely recall.

Going to college barely past Watergate

A Midwest campus of limestone and Saturday football

Manhattan, Kansas the “Little Apple,” where I performed

I have no nostalgia for the place where I met my future mate.

I have traveled all over the world

Lived in the lush green of Ireland

Took many country walks around stonewalls

Became intimate with Druid ruins and sea battered cliffs.

A feel-good story about a high school choir at Carnegie Hall

Brings to mind my own choral experiences of my youth

Vocalist, soloist, teacher’s pet, musical wunderkind

Even this glimpse of the past does not stir sentimentality.

Blasé about the future in another century when I was young

I remain speculative rather than curious about my senior years

I am not guilt ridden about my disconnect with my youth

I have mastered living in the moment, content with here and now.

Memories return without regard for my expectations

They are released by triggers, a smell, a sight, a sound

They enter dreams, meditations, long-distant drives

They decide what to present—good or bad, happy or sad.

Memories return by surprise, something forgotten revealed

Although I may want to bury them, cast them aside

They return, insist for my attention, my acknowledgement

Forgetting is temporary, memories rise from recesses of my mind.