A Message From the Memoirist — for Bibi

by Paul Pines

4:00 AM
at the Northwoods Inn
the room temp set for 70
but the fan never
stops blowing

I can’t sleep

imagine writers
driving the High Peaks
to slushy Lake Placid
where shortly after breakfast
I’ll talk to them about
writing a memoir

help them find a way
to let memory speak
for itself
                     will they think
                     I’m kidding
                     and go home?

I close my eyes
think about the way memory
spreads like an ocean
in the depths
of my mind
then spills
into
the abyss
of mind-before-thought

I’ll tell them
they are heroes who hear
Destiny’s call setting off
on a journey to redeem
a treasure hidden
in the dark

remind them
that memory is mother
of the muses

a self-organizing system
that breaks down
to re/new itself
at a level of greater
complexity

a spider
in whose belly
the web is
pre/formed

the oak
in the acorn

weaver of threads
into whole cloth

point out
that what’s re/membered
is made whole

pattern from which
all patterns
are born

the field
in which we
are embedded
embedded
in us

the Genius
who begins to whisper
in our ear as soon as our lips
touch Lethe
and we drop
screaming
into the
world