The Art of Remembrance

"You know what sunsets make me think of?", I said absent minded, as I posted this picture into my Twitter account.

"Hmmm", Ricky said quietly as he backed the car out of the grocery store parking lot, only half paying attention...to me or maybe the cars.

"That E. E. Cummings poem. You know, the one that says 'I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)'...or something", I looked up and he sort of gave me a strange look.

"What do sunsets like, make you think of people or miss someone?", he said.

"Well, yeah. I always get melancholic when the sun is setting. You've noticed, right? I think of people, I miss people...Don't you ever think of anyone or miss anyone when the day is drawing to an end?", I asked with my voice raising slightly.

"No. I guess not.", he admitted sort of sheepishly and turned on the radio, to drown the silence.

How do you not remember someone or think of a specific person at times? I've carried everyone I've ever loved, in any capacity, with me my whole life.

They are in that warm wind that blows through my hair as the sun shines through my eyelids.

They are in that right song playing at the right time. In that familiar look a complete stranger gives you that you thought you'd never see again.

If I have ever loved you...If I have ever called you a friend...If we have ever crossed paths. I take you with me. Everywhere I go.

Some of the most moving things ever said...wether in a book, movie or poetry...I have completely identified with. Like in the movie Stepmom, when a mother that's about to die from cancer, tells her daughter: "You can miss me. AND. Take me with you. When you're in trouble, have me there. When you fall in love, have me there. You can. On your wedding night. When your babies are born. I want to be there. Will you take me?"

Such simplicity in the act of remembering, yet it involves effort. Passion. Love. It involves selflessness.

So every time the sun sets, and my eyes sort of glaze over...

Or some other time when you're talking to me and I seem to be far off somewhere else...

Leave me be. I am thinking of someone. I am missing someone. Dead or alive. Good or bad. I am taking their heart with me, in my heart.

Do you ever take me with you?

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

E.E. Cummings