Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Thursday, August 8th, 2024.

Today's poem is by former poet laureate, Billy Collins, and it's called Forgetfulness.

I once heard Collins talk about this poem, and he said, in in a nutshell that it was describing the phenomenon

one begins to experience after they pass the age of 30 and then begins to simultaneously laugh at

and fear as they approach and then pass 40 and 50 in succession.

It's short the process of the mind becoming more and more like a small unfurnished apartment.

And I think you will inevitably find that this poem is very familiar,

even if you've never heard it before. Even very young listeners

might vicariously recognize what this poem is describing as you probably live with people who

struggle with forgetfulness. I blame my own current state of forgetfulness on small children

who don't let me get full nights of sleep. And I even optimistically pray that one day maybe

those portions of my mind and memory that have sort of shriveled or the bridges have collapsed

and I've lost access to those those neighborhoods.

Maybe life will return there one day as consistent sleep returns to my life.

But Collins here is not convincing me to hold out much hope. In fact, even as I revisited this poem in order to record it, I was

struck by the illusion in the final lines to a love poem featuring the moon. And I was trying to

recall, ironically enough, whether I, in fact, knew any love poems in which the moon featured prominently,

and one did come to mind. There be none of Beauty's Daughters, which was a Lord Byron poem,

and I began to recite it to myself, there be none of Beauty's Daughters with a magic like the,

and like music on the waters as thy sweet voice to me when something, something,

I know the moon's in there somewhere, but I can't quite remember where it comes in.

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