Persimmon
Try as I may I can not
bring back memory enough
with strength enough
to know with any certainty
the face and name of things,
events, and times that are now
lost and grown over
in the full face of the sun.
Life can only be about
the living, and the living can
only be about memory.
Memory is selective, unique,
and limited in each of us
as an uninvited guest speaking
out of turn from deep within
triggered by small barefoot boys
riding ditches rising to the road.
We are each and one our own
holding inside us an experience
of another that is at once true
but forever limited to our
own side of it traveling like
the endless falling water of Niagara
or to the droop of potted flowers left too long.
Circumscribed, held in abeyance,
crippled with time it is
only memory that we have
as held in the down pour
filled ditches draining into
the next, floating ever so briefly
with ships, distant thunder and
the dark green of a fresh spring.
This is the most real time for
me and memory. Sardines and toast
at Saturday noon. Too many hands
reaching for french fries. Fudge
hidden on the frozen December porch.
Popcorn in the mammoth fired clay bowl
with black & white movies. Scrabble
with John. Fried chicken in the refrigerator.
Flowers in beds built in the middle of the yard, too hard to mow.
Acres of garden with monster green tomato bugs
and endless green beans. Rows of flowers with
no hope of seeing weed and discerning flower.
Silk handkerchiefs turned into church folk.
Wednesday night service. The red plastic motorcycle
with yellow wheels run in and out of coat sleeves.
Med-a-Cal and too much of being
40 something. Angel food cake and
endless projects punctuated with
meals; two of every food group.
Asparagus filched from agra-business.
Persimmons rubbed in the face
way off in a country meadow.
Coffee cans of blackberries paid
for with scratches and mosquitoes.
All is in motion. The Argus at night was
the only stillness, quietude. Every
memory is one of movement, of
constant doing of things that need
be done. That need be done now in
order to move on to the next.
I can not remember her
touch that was not a 'doing'
of the necessary, of the sustaining,
of the next before laying down to sleep.
I can not remember her lap
or the rest of my head on her breast.
This was not her way.
What I have is not the embrace of arms
but the embrace of memory that
reaches out and warms in jars
of canned fruit, in smells of
the kitchen, of persimmons of memory
drawn across the face
and given back.
Nokomis
October 31, 1999
Greenfield Series
©1999 Persimmon — Joseph W. Yarbrough
Reproduction prohibited without written permission.
bring back memory enough
with strength enough
to know with any certainty
the face and name of things,
events, and times that are now
lost and grown over
in the full face of the sun.
Life can only be about
the living, and the living can
only be about memory.
Memory is selective, unique,
and limited in each of us
as an uninvited guest speaking
out of turn from deep within
triggered by small barefoot boys
riding ditches rising to the road.
We are each and one our own
holding inside us an experience
of another that is at once true
but forever limited to our
own side of it traveling like
the endless falling water of Niagara
or to the droop of potted flowers left too long.
Circumscribed, held in abeyance,
crippled with time it is
only memory that we have
as held in the down pour
filled ditches draining into
the next, floating ever so briefly
with ships, distant thunder and
the dark green of a fresh spring.
This is the most real time for
me and memory. Sardines and toast
at Saturday noon. Too many hands
reaching for french fries. Fudge
hidden on the frozen December porch.
Popcorn in the mammoth fired clay bowl
with black & white movies. Scrabble
with John. Fried chicken in the refrigerator.
Flowers in beds built in the middle of the yard, too hard to mow.
Acres of garden with monster green tomato bugs
and endless green beans. Rows of flowers with
no hope of seeing weed and discerning flower.
Silk handkerchiefs turned into church folk.
Wednesday night service. The red plastic motorcycle
with yellow wheels run in and out of coat sleeves.
Med-a-Cal and too much of being
40 something. Angel food cake and
endless projects punctuated with
meals; two of every food group.
Asparagus filched from agra-business.
Persimmons rubbed in the face
way off in a country meadow.
Coffee cans of blackberries paid
for with scratches and mosquitoes.
All is in motion. The Argus at night was
the only stillness, quietude. Every
memory is one of movement, of
constant doing of things that need
be done. That need be done now in
order to move on to the next.
I can not remember her
touch that was not a 'doing'
of the necessary, of the sustaining,
of the next before laying down to sleep.
I can not remember her lap
or the rest of my head on her breast.
This was not her way.
What I have is not the embrace of arms
but the embrace of memory that
reaches out and warms in jars
of canned fruit, in smells of
the kitchen, of persimmons of memory
drawn across the face
and given back.
Nokomis
October 31, 1999
Greenfield Series
©1999 Persimmon — Joseph W. Yarbrough
Reproduction prohibited without written permission.