Remembered (poem and prompt)

Remembered

The grass is wet
where Earth has pulled
water from air, 
like rabbits
from a hat. 

Droplets perch on the
tips of blades
and glisten in the
morning sun—
liquid lanterns.

I move slowly because
it's the only way
I can move today. 
There is no virtue
in my savoring steps,

this is just exhaustion—
airborne at first,
but I have borne it
ever since.
The field feels

too wide to cross,
untraversable
as the night sky, 
but I trace constellations
in the glittering dew

and train my gaze on the
infinity of stars
just
beyond
my shuffle.

The sun sits at eye level.
A flock of starlings
swoops between us.
I hear the flutter
of feathers.

A few steps more,
and I am walking through
bird breath,
through air whipped
by wing beat. 

I inhale until
I am made
of birds.

I wonder,
how many wings
carry me
across the shadowed
and shining expanse?

How many migrations
re-member
in the cells
of this 
supposed
self?

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

The Prompt

My own poem was prompted by the interplay of my body’s limitations and the limitless interconnection that defines existence. To be is to inter-be. If that simple facts stirs up a poem inside you, that’s wonderful! Let it out! Poems don’t like to be pent up. If you’d like something else to go off of as a prompt, though, then here’s a single and seemingly simple word for you to play with: remember.

We are probably all well versed in the dictionary definition of remember—”to bring to mind or think of again; to retain in the memory.” In the end of my poem, I played with the word, riffing off of what seems like a plausible etymology and alternate definition—remember as the opposite of dismember. Remember as “to bring to body” or “to retain as limbs.” Disappointingly, a Google search reveals that this is not where the word remember comes from. Instead, it derives from the Latin rememorari, which means “to call to mind.” Perhaps the ‘b’ was inserted for ease of pronunciation or to conjure a crispness in our remembering that might have been clouded by the much mufflier rememer. (Though I do love the symbolism of this particular word being a palindrome!)

What does the word remember pull up for you? How does it feel to voice it as a command: “Remember!” What injunctions want to follow? How does it feel to speak it as a question: “Remember?” What words want to flow from there?

What’s you’re relationship with remembering? With long-time memory? With short-term memory? With remembering old stories in new ways? With weaving new truths into your vast trove of memories? With remembering where you put your car keys?

Do you have a specific memory that wants to speak its truth through a poem? Or a specific memory that wants to surface and be remembered in a different way?

There’s no wrong direction to go with this, friends. Follow your own curiosity. Follow the pull of your own heart. I look forward to reading your poems in the comments!