Michael Shepherd Memory Poems

and brought back with her

the first few primroses she did not pick
tucked neat into the hedgerow
...

and then in between remarks,
you fall silent, still, the eyes
not far away but rather,
seeing the faraway right here
...

Sometimes memory
runs back like an instant fast rewind
like it’s said to do at death
and hits you wham between the eyes
...

A gentle touch upon the forearm
with a hand, gloved or warm with life,
...

I, upon this journey, question me:
journey, I to God, or God to me?

If I to God: I pray that journey fast;
...

that moment when …
when memory first opened its treasured album
and began to make our picture of ourselves -
...