Sometimes we want to forget. By Paul Goldfinger, taken at the beach in Ocean Grove. ©
A retired English professor from Ocean Grove shared this poem with us. She partly did it in response to my telling her that a Blogfinger reader complained that our posted poems do not rhyme and could, therefore, not qualify for the designation : “poem.”
About “Forgetfulness” , the professor says that it is one of her favorites. She also sent a link which has an audio file where the poet reads his poem. You should listen to it as you read along. Here is the link:
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
or 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.
Billy Collins, “Forgetfulness” from Questions About Angels. Copyright © 1999 by Billy Collins. Reprinted with the permission of University of Pittsburgh Press. Source: Poetry (January 1990).
HARRY CONNICK, JR. From When Harry Met Sally. Rodgers and Hart wrote it, and it was in the the 1937 musical “Babes in Arms.”
Harry Connick, Jr.