As I drive to the store
a feature on the radio
sets my mind roaming
thirty years back. I lived
in a little room in Cincinnati,
read an interview in PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
with one of those celebrity New Age healers,
one whose name
soon plummeted out of public view.
I'd left California then,
thought I'd left my soul there
(how could the midwest have a soul?) ,
and I wrote to this fellow in desperation
with a crazy scheme to go back
and make him my therapist,
assuming I could break free
of the substantial chains
binding me in Ohio.
Never thought I'd get an answer,
but weeks later, a postcard:
'I think I understand what you want,
but I'm committed to some sculpture
projects for the next six months.'
(rennaisance man— a sculptor, too!)
A small incident in a life.
Now I tried to remember:
what was that fellow's name?
I called down the well of memory.
No answer back from the darkness.
I asked again, thinking 'one more example
of the effect of all the chemical
additives in my diet.' And then,
so silently they were there before I realized it,
two words, 'Stanley Keleman, '
clear and silent as a sunrise.
I sat waiting in my car
at a red light in the autumn air,
for the moment, completely self-satisfied
that I can still call down a dark well
and a trusty voice
will answer sometimes
up through the labyrinth of years,
the shadow box of faded memory.
Max Reif
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mysteries-of-mind/
