Memory Ahead

Stepping off the curb, scaring the random pigeon
Approaching a conversation in an early city evening,
Do you draw the face, the tremble of the fingers, in his colors?
Choose the palette for pain to seep down, after leaving?

Is it a fade, from grays to black,
Or brilliant in real incandescen restaurant hues?
How will it seem, when it comes back,
Some day, when you are shopping for new shoes,
Or cleaning up after a dinner,
Happy with remarks about dessert,
And how you look (younger; thinner).

Then will the colors intrude, answering some subtle sign?
Whites supplanted with that faded low-
Light tinge of pigeon-gray
And fear in chiaroscuro?
And was this some spiritual design,
Mapping a way across the street,
With older shoes, on earlier feet?

A step across the line dividing you
From infinite changes and reminding
Is a fine grained memory Ð too fine
To built a public mind upon, though true.
But, when memoryÕs moment clocks in, blinding Ð
The face, and trembling fingers, in their native colors.