ON THE PERSISTANCE OF REMEMBERING.

Nearly twenty five years gone

And that night still comes to mind.

Be better, I suppose, if I forgot it.

But I haven’t. Have you?

The memories disappear, and I think them gone,

But a song, a story, someone who looks like you

Calls to mind the raw spot,

A constant rubbing in the memory,

Should be calloused over by now,

But it’s not. I notice the pain and look,

And it’s still as red and angry

As the night it happened

I don’t know how many people

Have urged me, almost ordered me:

“Let it go, it’s only getting in the way

 Of your progress.” What progress?

Nothing in my life has been the same

Since that terrible night-nothing.

How do you leave off remembering

All that happened, in great detail.

It’s nothing like choosing

Peas or corn to have with my steak:

It should be so easy.

Well I suppose it is easy

For the uninvolved-

But even those who say they don’t care

Have their agendas.

So now that I’ve thought of it

I will put it back and pretend

That I never remembered.

Kind of like the surgeon

Who opens up the patient

Expecting to find nothing wrong

And finds him full of inoperable cancer.

He stuffs it back in,

Sews the patient up,

And nobody’s any the wiser

At least that’s how it used to be.

Today they’re dedicated to truth telling

Sometimes a lie is more merciful.

But there’s always a day of reckoning

When the mess just gets too big.

And so I will forget

Until I remember again.

Chip Bergeron

-August 5, 2012