Memorandum

Save these words for a while because of something they remind you of although you cannot remember what that is a sense that is part dust and part the light of morning you were about to say a name and it is not there I forget them too I am learning to pray to Perdita to whom I said nothing at the time and now she cannot hear me as far as I know but the day goes on looking the names often change more slowly than the meanings whole families grow up in them and then are gone into the anonymous sky oh Perdita does the hope go on after the names are forgotten and is the pain of the past done when the calling has stopped and those betrayals so long repeated that they are taken for granted as the shepherd does with the sheep