Memory Again

Earlier this year (February, and the only reason I know that is because I wrote it in my notebook, knowing this would find its way into a discussion of haiku), on an episode of the show Nova, a neuroscientist named Julia Shaw said, "The question isn't, 'Do we have false memories?' The question is, 'How false are our memories?'"

I mean, really. Oh brain, the tricks you play!

The very act of remembering makes a memory vulnerable to change. A new memory each time. Never the same memory twice.

That sound you hear is poets everywhere falling onto the floor, so overcome with ideas they don't know what to do but writhe for a while.

All of which makes the discussion of memory as an inspiration for haiku ever more immediate, since a memory isn't so much a memory as it is memory-plus-present-plus-all-the-stuff-your-brain-was-doing-while-you-were-thinking-of-other-stuff.

I wish I could follow Dr. Shaw around for a week and write haiku based on the stuff she says.

*

each
afternoon
this
new
memory

white pines