Welcome to the Third Thursday of National Poetry Month and I am again joining Bonny, Kym, Sarah, and Vera! Today is all about aging! Which for me has some days with lots of reminders and others with hardly any at all… but I think my most worrisome part of aging is memory!
And yes, it is a thing that I am noting as I repeat what my beloved Nana did regularly… run through a list of names before settling on the “right” one. Sigh. I am thankful that Billy Collins has written a poem about this phenomena because he makes me feel seen and even find a bit of humor in the situation!
Forgetfulness
by 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 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.
“Forgetfulness” from Questions about Angels, by Billy Collins, © 1999.
If you want to learn more about Billy Collins, you can find information here and his website here.
I hope this poem brought a smile to your face as, perhaps, you nodded along with it. And please stop by and see all the poems Bonny has gathered today!
This is wonderful, Kat! The physical manifestations of aging came to my mind first, but forgetfulness was really the first thing that showed up for me. Billy Collins is especially poignant here. The upside is that I can re-watch a move whose name I barely recall because I can’t remember how it ended. (But I do wonder why I still have an endless supply of 70s and 8os song lyrics at ready recall!)
This is hitting a little close to home, as I’ve found that in addition to my body being a little creaky, the main way I know I’m aging is that I can know, for instance that I read a book but can’t remember anything about it! Though Billy Collins has a wonderful way of bringing humor to what could be a discouraging situation.
This is just so true! And Billy Collins (as always) does a marvelous job of examining the loss of memory. This reminds me of Fletcher’s Mom who used to recite every child’s name until she came to the right one. And just the other day I almost called Iris Mabel! LOL
Billy Collins is so very GOOD at finding the universality of [any subject] and adding just the right touch of humor. What a perfect poem, Kat!
Trust Billy Collins to find the humor and poignant moments in forgetfulness that sometimes comes with aging.
Thanks for sharing this one, I truly enjoyed it !
Wonderful!! I can remember as much as I write down. When I’ forgetful I wonder if it is because of aging… What a great poem.
This is a lovely poem. Could it be that forgetfulness is a reminder to live Life in the moment more fully?
What a marvellous poem you have found this week – the first stanza is so so true . I’m not familiar with Billy Collins so will be doing a bit of investigation….rabbit holes here I come
When you mentioned the list of names being recited until the correct one pops up for me it was adding several names belonging to cats (past and present) – it was then you knew things (for Catherine) were getting rough
Mind you this used to happen when my children were little so I’m not sure about aging being the culprit 😊