Analog Memory Poem by Sidi Mahtrow

The best understanding of memory
Is provided by Edison and his phonograph.
When you scratch along the groove
A tiny current ensues.

Amplified by whatever means
And in the (phonograph's) realm
Music is the sound
in tone pure and clear
Loud or silence you hear.

Scientist are intrigued,
When they probe the brain
They find electrons in motion
And assume that's memory in action.

Never giving thought to how
It's recorded for playback now
Or later when the thought arrises
To scratch a bit of RNA where it lies.

Stored within brain cells without number
Is memory that can be recalled, awake or in slumber
To flash before your eyes or as a passing thought
That fills in whatever you might.

Nature never gets it right
She stores things both wrong and right
So that on recall perhaps
Facts are (maybe) facts are seen
and remembered in a different light.

So in that bit of grey matter up above
Cells without number are there to record (remember)
In a bit of fancy footwork in writing a code
Of nucleotides that are set aside for later use, a la mode.

Now we come to the question to be asked,
"What happens when you die? "
Is it immediately erased
Or there to be reread (as a record player's trace?)

Puzzle that out if you like
But wouldn't it be
Wonderful to reread the thoughts and visions
Of a departed one who really isn't gone.