The Unmemoried Vs Life, frailty and memory*

Mabel Encinas-Sánchez

This poem presents the desolate life of those that do not want to have memory.
The credit for the abstract image is: (c) Fons Heijnsbroek

The Unmemoried

 
While the rocks of the Pacific
remember with their figures the repeated presence of the waves,
and plants remember the dead ones with their flowers and fruits,
there are those among humans who refuse to have memory.
 
The unmemoried
want to bury their heads in the sand
and as soon as they breathe, they start coughing;
they go hand-cupped to drink water from the waterfall,
and their hands are drawn empty;
they walk on diamonds, which are the most sterile lands,
and they are forced to eat insects and carrion.
 
The unmemoried
have tangled hair and opaque eyes;
their heart is a prune that distils bitterness.
Their lips are cracked from inviting us so often
to trip over the same stone;
their skin is as hard as glass,
and it would break with our firm touch.
 
At night,
the unmemoried are lost souls
who walk in darkness
because they allowed a gust of wind to extinguish their flames.
The unmemoried want to grab us by our entrails;
but we keep our eyes wide open,
we cover our ears
and resist following our hearts beating together.
 
After all,
the unmemoried do not live anywhere.



Life, frailty and memory

This poem addresses the importance of memory in the light of the fragility of life
The credit for the butterfly image is: (c) PiccoloNamek

 
Life is not only information,
nor information is reduced to computers with their bits and bytes
nor a byte is always a bite,
nor bites are used only to eat,
nor is eating every day what gives us life.
 
Memory are not just words and laughter,
nor laughter goes unnoticed ,
nor unnoticed things do not leave a trail,
nor trails are always erased with a breath of wind,
nor is the wind what stirs memories .
 
Present time seems a crushing hammer, but it is not,
what crushes present time are not only routines,
routines are not always rhythmic repetitions,
sometimes they are arrhythmias
and sometimes they are weeping and wrongdoings without repairs;
repairs, if any, do not erase the memories,
because memory is always present.
 
Not only words nourish the bits of the heartbeat,
nor beats arise from a crystalline and bright heart,
nor is glass all that is fragile ,
fragile are butterfly wings that allow her to fly,
and at perching on flowers to leave a trail, which is much more than all the words together.
 
The butterfly that flies today remembers that she was caterpillar and cocoon,
and a cocoon is no alien to pain and death;
death is an inseparable part of life,
and of life are crying, laughter, wind and the memory of the butterfly.

*Both poems are published in the book Unraveling Memories, by publisher Victorina Press

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