XIX
I don't mind getting older
But what I most regret
Is the difficulty I have in remembering
And the ease with which I forget.
I once had a wonderful memory,
Could remember where we'd been
What we'd done, who we'd met
And all that we had seen.
Now I go upstairs to fetch something
Then stand in the middle of the floor
Because I cannot remember
What I've come up for.
And if I am talking about
A person - or a place,
The name I need suddenly
Disappears in space.
Sometimes I work around the name
Hoping my listener won't realise
That all this elegant eloquence
Is but a cunning disguise.
I go through the alphabet
To find the word's first letter
Or pounce upon it suddenly -
That doesn't work any better.
It hovers on the outskirts of my mind
J-u-s-t out of reach.
Impervious to curses, cajolery
Or the techniques that memory experts teach.
If I ignore the elusive word
I very often find
That at some unexpected moment
It pops back into my mind.
I meant to end this poem
On a profound and helpful tack,
But the final verse has fled my mind
And refuses to come back.......
August 1997
