[INAUDIBLE],, that was the gist of it.
It wasn't that blunt, but it was the point.
A poem called "Forgetfulness" that I've
wrote from some time ago and intend to read.
And I just start out by talking about literary amnesia,
as I've heard it called.
That is, forgetting what you have read.
"Forgetfulness."
"The name of the author is the first to go,
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel,
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even
heard of, it is as if, one by one, the memories you used
to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere
of the brain, to a little fishing village
where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and you watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name
begins with an L as far as you can recall well on your own way
to oblivion where you will join those
who have forgotten even how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have
drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart."
Thank you.
I'm going to read two more poems.