SHEETS OF MEMORY

[Perhaps bittersweet, but true]

The calendar of my memory holds
Folded each close-packed sheet,
And I look through each day, my life’s long day,
And I trace the way, my life’s long way
Through a palimpsest of shades of grey
As the friends of my life I meet.

And I wish, when the Lord made memory,
He had thought of one thing more:
I wish he had planned - but it’s too late now
For never will man discover how
To forget, no matter how firm his vow,
And to slam shut memory’s door.

There’s so much, in the sheets of my memory,
That I love as I love life,
And yet there’s a day I would wipe away,
Tear the sheet from my memory, blot out that day,
The day when my darling was gone away,
And I became widow, not wife.

So, Lord, if you’re busy folding yet
New calendars of memory, pain and fret,
Could you please include, as a gift to man,
(It would be a joy and a gift to man,
A blessing and a shrift to man)
The ability to forget?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~