I was having breakfast with my son at a local sidewalk café when a flower vender, gently embracing bunches of red zinnias, orange dahlias, heavy-headed sunflowers, and deep pink tiger lilies, tempted me with a bouquet. Of course, I could not resist.
This treasure found a perfect spot in my sunny kitchen and with the summer heat, the lily buds opened quickly. These lilies, my bridal spray, and an array of long stemmed, peach-colored roses – delicately shaped – are the posies that will forever stay in my poetic memory, available for instant recall.
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Czech novelist Milan Kundera, describes poetic memory:
The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our life beautiful.
Indeed, we want to remember the Good because the Good sustains us in difficult times and brings our life into perspective and balance. We may, for example, have parted ways with a particular friend, but we can still laugh all over again at the jokes she told or momentarily relive a meaningful shared adventure.
Poet Federico García Lorca, born in a farming village near Granada, Spain (1898), grew up among flowers, vegetable gardens, and orchards. His poetic memory holds these images:
My oldest childhood memories have the flavor of the earth. The meadows, the fields, have done wonders for me. The wild animals … the livestock, the people living on the land, all these are suggestive in a way that very few people understand … Shepherds, fields, sky, solitude … This is poetic memory, and I trust it implicitly.
Why does García Lorca implicitly trust his poetic memory? Because the natural images he remembers are the most constant elements of human experience. Unlike certain events that are open to interpretation and often clouded by ego and emotion, Nature does not deceive. It embodies truth, dependability, and honesty.
While we each have our personal poetic memory, we also like to share in the poetic memory of others. This is probably one reason many of us enjoy reading autobiographies or, as we advance in years, feel moved to write a memoir. It is the reason we assemble family photo albums and make scrapbooks. While the importance of some these things will fade, the most precious and truthful will remain in our poetic memory.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I agree heartily with this passage. In my own experience, I can consistently recall the same “pure” or “poetic” moments in times when I am seeking to feel that sense of life’s beauty within my own personal experiences.