They aren’t memories anymore
More evocations of a moment perhaps
Yet nothing certain, nothing fixed
Total freedom for the imagination
I tell you this because that is how it felt
As I climbed out of my early-day bath
There I was, for an instant transported
To my land of misty morning make believe
Of course now you have the image
Of a naked, elderly man, unsteadily
Placing his foot onto the linoleum floor
Which, as we all know, is slippy as hell
Such that no amount of meadow grass
Or talk of Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey
Will resurrect that peace, which was not
A memory, but was the whole of a lifetime
