memory & desire

Hidden Joy

Nothing is Lost
- by Noel Coward -

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of that wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

From Collected Verse edited by Graham Payn & Martin Tickner, Graywolf Press, 2000.  Electronic text via The Writer's Almanac

Assia's Dior: A Mystery

Chlorophyl
- by Ted Hughes -

She sent him a blade of grass, but no word.
Inside it
The witchy doll, soaked in Dior.
Inside it
The gravestone. Inside it
A sample of her own ashes.  Inside it
Her only daughter's
Otherwise non-existent smile.
Inside it, the keys
Of a sycamore.
Inside those, falling
The keys
Of a sycamore. Inside those,
Falling and turning in the air the
Keys
Of a Sycamore.

From Capriccio (Gehenna Press, 1990) reprinted in Collected Poems, edited by Paul Keegan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) p. 799.

generations of l'origan

Handbag
- by Ruth Fainlight -

My mother's old leather handbag,
crowded with letters she carried
all through the war.  The smell
of my mother's handbag: mints
and lipstick and Coty powder.
The look of those letters, softened
and worn at the edges, opened,
read, and refolded so often.
Letters from my father.  Odour
of leather and powder, which ever
since then has meant womanliness,
and love, and anguish, and war.

the urn-shaped rosebud

My grandfather was a talented gardener and though I remember plenty of marigolds planted in his yard, I don't think he grew any roses. Still, he always had catalogs from nurseries and rose growers laying around. I have always been a bit of a reference material freak, and for me, these catalogs were portals of imagination.

All the varieties were organized by type and then by color and each offering was accompanied by a picture and a description. Sometimes, but not always, a picture of that variety's bud would be included. The description would usually go something like: "Queen Elizabeth -- Bud pointed; Flower MEDIUM PINK COLOR, double flower (38 petals), high-centered to cupped, large (4 inch) blooms borne singly and in clusters; Fragrant; Foliage dark, glossy, leathery; Growth very vigorous, upright and bushy. All American Rose Society Award, 1955." (This description is courtesy of Texas A&M.)

I read the descriptions as if they were secret incantations. I memorized the descriptions several varieties and checked up on them from year to year. I was intrigued by the scent descriptions (pungent, spicy and sweet - how could you get all that in a one rose?) But my favorite factoid was the shape of the rosebud (which, remember, was not always pictured). The regal Queen Elizabeth noted above sports a pointed bud, Golden Medal's is ovoid, and Pristine's bud is described as long. Just long. To me, these descriptors always seemed pretty vague. But there is the elusive, and to my imagination, the most perfect shape of all buds: the urn.