I Love This Getting Old

I forget a lot of what I read.
Some days I’ll fall madly for a moment, a phrase,
a word, then I’ll scuttle with compulsive curiosity
to find more meaning in all this. I’ll swat at a life-changing
articulation (I got you, you elusive bugger!),
then smoosh it like a drain fly smacked
against a kitchen wall to keep it, black and white, forever.
It is usually gone by bedtime.

Where do all these things go? Into unconscious
trash bins to hang out with used-up TV tropes
and winged horses and my flesh ballooning
like yeast dough rising, pressing against the
walls of dreams? Or do they just hide to jump
out dressed in white sheets and shouting BOO
in the middle of a conversation about which
is better with pan-fried, crispy gnocchi,
garlic spinach or roasted brussels sprouts?
I remember once (I think) that I woke up from sleep
in the middle of the night to scratch life’s meaning
onto the pad I kept at my bedside. In the morning
I looked: “Airedale.”

But maybe all the forgotten words are really seeds
that germinate in the dark to sprout one day
as a glorious dahlia or noxious weed in the garden of my being.
Or maybe they will one day gather with the quiet drones
of departed declensions of Latin nouns and (what?)
I ate for Tuesday’s dinner. Together we will stand around
the altar of my heart in the sanctuary of silence,
counting breaths and waiting for an Easter meaning to arrive.

                  -Kitty Yanson