Memories

Ms Bleich, my third grade teacher used to sing this song to our class, leaving us all in hysterics. For some reason, one that I can't quite put my finger on, I've been reminiscing a lot lately. While home in PA for vacation, Mom and I sat and went through boxes of old photos. Perhaps those images from the past have stuck themselves so firmly in my mind that now everything I see or hear makes me think of something else. Unfortunately for me, sometimes one memory triggers another, and yet another, until sometimes I find myself pondering things that really are so far gone and not worth remembering. Today was that day, and at the same time not that day. Let me explain:

While driving to work I happened to look up into my rearview mirror only to see a car that looked just like my darling Wanda. She was beat up just like Wanda too. For a minute I wished I was driving down Ringgold Road behind the wheel of my "Old Faithful." Of course this got me to thinking about all the places that Wanda took me, all the new places she took me, whether good or bad. It was then that I was reminded of a poem that I wrote quite a while back:

Dashboard Confessionals

As chauffeur and passenger,
One not subservient to the other,
We choose darkness,
Permitting the headlights to
Succumb to the hypnotic dances
Of the fireflies.

Closing their weary portals,
Twilight caresses our cheeks,
With a goodnight kiss
As we prepare for our farewell.

A gentle late summer's breeze
Delivers your deepest secrets
Without hesitation,
For the crickets are our only witnesses.

I marvel in your honesty
And curse the night's blindfold
Which veils the meeting of glances
During yet another,
Dashboard confessional.

Of course then I couldn't help but to think of other things that I vowed I never would. I hadn't read this poem in awhile. But after I read it, I realized how much I love it. It came out just the way I wanted it to, and writing it was like second nature, it came so easily. I suppose part of the reason it came so easily was because I really was so in love at that time of my life. Love simply propels the writer in me. It's art, in and of itself.

And then I think of how I would love to change the meaning of that poem so I could read it everyday, to soak in its beauty, but afterward not feel so broken hearted. But then something inside me scolds myself for even thinking such a thing. Despite the connotation it's adopted, it's still beautiful. It's still art. It's my expression. To change that would be to change my heart.