Day 3: A Message to Myself So I Remember Who I Am

For today's poem, I returned back to a series I'm writing about an imaginary woman who lived on the property I live on now, but back in the late 1800s.  I started the series two years ago as I was writing poems about the history of the town where I grew up.

A Message to Myself So I Remember Who I Am
Wagnon Road, 1898

Removed from the troubles of everyday
life—the mind opens like a sky stirred by
sea wind.  Memories blow in, thin and pale,
then bloom up into cinematic stained
sails like ghosts.  What message does each carry?

These days they only cloud.  I imagine
the jagged crown of dark trees on the far
ridge can hold them back.  As if mercy were
fair.  But it’s likely only tiredness
that inks my mind clear of the hope’s fireflies.
Some days, like a phantom limb I can still
feel to itch, I can feel his soft lips on
mine, his strong arm around my waist.  And all
the dead days since his death are heaved off,
thin clouds that they are, and driven back to sea.