Foraging for Memories

Once upon a time

 little old ladies

foraged for wild salad greens

in the fallow fields along the road.

Defined as weeds by many, 

crowding out more urbane peers,

these humble plants

gave spice and flavor to

what otherwise   

would have been

a more pedestrian dish.

---

The little old ladies

and their rough homespun aprons

have now been relegated to memory,

echoes of a past

superceded

but sometimes difficult

to uproot,

tenacious as those weeds.

---

We too are foragers

as we dig deep into our past.

Foraging for memories.

Some we must wrench from the soil,

like rucola,

for it is the roots that have a bite.

Some are simply leaves

cut at the base,

like brighteyes,

leaving a few stems

to regenerate new  memories .

Or other versions of the old. 

For memories are fickle.

Some can be like dandelion seeds

that scatter in the wind.

Yet they too will find a foothold

and refuse to go away.

---

Memories that range from birth to death,

from a fleeting shadow on a wall,

to an eclipse  of the sun,

or a farewell to what we had thought eternal.

Memories that are always there,

surfacing when least we want them

when least we expect them.

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