that moment when … <br />when memory first opened its treasured album <br />and began to make our picture of ourselves - <br /> <br />it belongs to all of us, to each of us. <br />it’s where each meets all, and all meets each; <br />more of ourselves than we have ever stopped to analyze: <br /> <br />that blurred, out-of-focus moment – was it <br />the pattern on the hood of our pram, <br />the strap around our kiddicart, <br />the turn of the stair, <br />the pattern of the bricks around the fountain in the park, <br />the memory of our first fall; <br />the lion’s head fountain on the wall? <br /> <br />was it not a person, of <br />those who peered into our cot, or lifted us, <br />simply because <br />we could already control those beings around us <br />with a dribbly smile, a vague wave of our hand? <br /> <br />was it the first thing that we remember <br />because it paid no attention to ourself, <br />but simply, was… was, outside our favoured world? <br /> <br />whether we ever open the album, or do not, <br />it sits there, unexplained, <br />holding some secret of a consciousness <br />beyond the theories of scientists and philosophers; <br />inevitably, ours <br /> <br />to be followed – some years after – <br />and this, we may deny at first – <br />by that moment of a further consciousness: <br />when - as equally mysterious, unforgettable, <br />and often unremembered to this day - <br />we knew that we knew something <br />but did not know what it was we knew.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-first-photo-that-memory-took/
