Silent images come to mind.
Watching the scene asleep or awake.
Without words, what does it mean?
Images etched in my memory.
Sometimes in a dream someone speaks to me.
It’s a shock to hear their voice.
I answer back, agitated, and wake up
And remember the image of the person.
The images were ours before we had words.
In the beginning was imagination.
The words were ours before we had writing.
Our culture begins with oral tradition.
The memorizers construct stark images
Using a technique thousands of years old
Placing the images in remembered places.
Total recall revisiting imagined settings.
The rest of us remember less and less.
We have databases in the information age.
Of course we remember some things
Being aware of the past in the present.
People used to keep family photo albums.
Now the images are digital and online.
You can view my slide show if you like
Seeing the images holding my memories.
You can see what’s in my mind’s eye.
I can look again closely at a moment in time.
It works for me to keep this collection
Documenting the world around me.
