_49. Remembering

Sitting in a cafe I read a poem noting the feeling
of Autumn wind and that season’s sunlight
and realized I had forgotten the sensation wholely.
I’ve been living in California too long
and this summer has been too damn hot.
I read somewhere that memories aren’t really
the mind recollecting facts so much as
tricking itself into re-experiencing an imagined situation.
The parts of my brain set aside for
October air movements have been neglected
to the point of loss, no feeling left
just a vision of massive cumulonimbus clouds
over the plains. I can still see them,
flat and still in the sky, but my mind
forgets how to give me skill the cihll
of the air beneath them. Memories come,
and go. This autumn maybe I’ll relearn
the feeling of the changing wind. For now,
though, I’ll still read poems in the August heat
and watch women fawn over a passing strollered baby,
something we need no memory to love
instinct showing us in those chubby limbs
and bulging eyes the face of the future.