Hunting Memory Poem by Barry Middleton

In my youth I was a hunter.
As age advances, I hunt for memory.
I remember planting flowers by the front steps,
just old enough to dig with a spoon.
I planted nasturtiums and was amazed at the riot of color as that grew.
I knew then I wanted to grow things.
I remember the garden gate I built at seven and how
my mother bragged on its durability all her life.
I knew then I wanted to build things.
I remember painting the kitchen and the smell of the glossy oil paint.
I remember the dogwood in bloom in an upper valley.
I remember roaming, searching; I remember beech trees, and the stillness of the woods before my eye caught the movement of a squirrel.
I remember the jeweled rocks in our rippling creek.
I remember home, the garden patch, apple picking,
the cool fall air, the first frost, cedar Christmas trees
and priceless winters when southern snow blew in from the west.
I remember the first daffodils of spring.
All childhood is intact, all of my life stored in memory.
I remember love and love lost,
and found and lost again.
I remember joy and pain, grief and new hope.
For now the monster of forgetting is at bay.
I can remember.
I can hunt, I can find, all time not yet lost.