I read the word “memory”
and lift my chin,
unease spilling and spreading inside.
I pause, wondering at this cracking open.
I look again, at this prompt asking me to “find a memory”,
to go back
and to write.
But, excavating the recesses of experience
feels fraught, as if I may discover
some time smoothed over,
a moment missed in comprehension,
which only now finds shards slung and dodged –
splinters just below the skin,
shims invisible in daylight.
This house startles me, cries for renewal in creaks from her hundred year old frame.
Then, I wonder – what stories live in these wooden beams and bracing?
Her memories hold it all;
then and now in this moment,
and this old body brings me back.
“If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much that you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Thinking in a White Room 
What a great Estes quote. So many possible doors! (I grew up in an old house… They’re full of intriguing mysteries).
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Thank you for sharing your understanding; this is what I was trying to communicate. I love how you phrase this as walking through doors and having to look around. Yes, we do have to do this, despite how painful.
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What a powerful poem. Some lines that stand out to me include, “excavating the recesses of experience/ feels fraught” – for its metaphor, its sounds and its multiple possible interpretations – and “shims invisible in daylight” for its assonance and imagery. Dang.
I notice, too, how you move from your memory to the house to the body – the embodiment of memory, if you will. And then, the quote. Fantastic.
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Thanks for reading and noticing, Amanda. I always get to the end of writing a poem and wonder if it’s too messy for sense.
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