Living Memory

Will I see you again land of my childhood that I left with nothing, nothing at all except and invisible reel of film for me to play and replay like a video of memory? Chopin, when he left his homeland, carried away a scoop of earth, and in the old tales, even Adam left Eden with a greening sprig: a shoot from the lign aloe tree to plant and conjure up that Garden once more, wherever he might be.

Perhaps the exile, taking something that though unreal, may still evoke as in a vanishing veil of smoke, a scene, a pageant, or a tableau, is bringing along what is to him like luz, the indestructible bone: the smallest part of him, yet known to resurrect the whole again.