Day 9 - "Anamnesis"

Hello everyone!

It's been quite a long absence, I realize, but not without good reason. My 800 mile move to a new state combined with laptop failure and lack of internet access brought my poetry blogging to a literal standstill for quite some time. I still don't have regular internet access, but I am able to update intermittently at least.

As far as a poem per day goes, I don't know if I'll be able to continue my marathon in that fashion for a while, but while we wait to see if I'll be able to post anywhere near regularly here in the near future, here's a poem for you all to chew on for a bit.

I wrote this one just recently, after watching an interesting DVD my friend lent me years ago called "Ergo Proxy." Very entertaining, and extremely thought provoking.

And this is what it provoked in me:



"Anamnesis"

“The bow is called life, but its work is death.”
- HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS


What was the start of all this?

When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?

This brief flutter of heartbeats,
Culminating in a sterilized hospital bed.

We have arrived,
But was the journey ever the destination
If we had never been truly conscious until now?

Plato believed that knowledge was the recovery
Of memory existent from the beginning of time,
Forgotten with each new human’s cathartic first breath.
All of it erased, in the postnatal shock of rebirth.

To have seen this prophecy come true, so neatly arranged:
Playing.
Learning.
Wondering.
Asking.
Discovering.
Hurting.
Struggling.
Striving.
Suffering.
Sighing.
Knowing.
And then, with that final breath,
Dying.

Have we come all this way once again to find
That the truth behind the lies
does not always bring happiness?
And how many times before have we known
That we would be here again;
That all of us, together, would be here again?

If there ever was a start to all this
It began with a click
And a whirr
And a maniacal laugh
That infinitely echoes
Until the day arrives when there is no one left to hear it.


- Joshua Clarke