Forgetfulness

Yesterday I was at the gym, taking a class ominously named "Boot Camp" (it was hard) and the instructor set up six stations. We rotated to each one, where we were meant to do different exercises - lateral raises with a body bar, crunches while holding weights on our chest, lateral jumps over a step, etc. - for a fixed amount of time.

He explained what we were supposed to do at each one and then set the clock. The problem wasn't that I couldn't perform the exercises  (though my backside this morning is making me wonder just how many squats I actually did in that class). It was that by the time I got to the third station, I couldn't remember what I was suppose to do next. My mind these days is a sieve.

Which brings me to our former poet laureate, the brilliant Billy Collins. Recently I came across this poem he wrote. It is especially dedicated to all my middle-aged friends.

Forgetfulness - Billy Collins

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,

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 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 of 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 even forgotten 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.

Comments

[The Weatherman]

There was something realy important I wanted to tell you...but I can't remember!