Nothing is lost in our memory

I share with you a poem from yesterday's Writer's Almanac: "Nothing is Lost" by Noel Coward, from Collected Verse. © Graywolf Press

Music stays in my brain, and movies or programs I've watched on television. I rarely just sit while watching TV; I routinely have a beading or sewing project in my hands and look back and forth from my hands to the television. Years later, I can look at the needlework project or the necklace or the binding on the quilt and hear or see what was streaming into my brain while I was doing that handwork. I found these words reaffirming.

I've also written of the words that were spoken to me in anger or with hatred or spite. I've retained all those also. May my words that others remember be only kind.
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Nothing is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten 2007s
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.