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Note on For an Album

The experiences which leave the most memorable traces somehow realign, as if in our musculature, in our moodiness and dreams, parts of what we are. It’s hard to say which parts, for many character traits remain untouched by events, remembered or not. But I don’t doubt that memory lays down, or lights up, new channels in the brain that are used for more than the mere scenes remembered.

More to the point of this poem is not the shaping action of memory, but the question as to why some memories fade. For then does a gap occur in us, a loss of acumen or style? ‘And who was she I cannot make appear?’ If I could recall her name, would that restore anything of significance? I evidently think it might.

Does forgetfulness point to more than just a dulling of the wits? I’ve not only forgotten the name and face of that friend who, as if from nowhere, suddenly said ‘Hi!’ in the middle of the Piazza San Marco; I also have to look up on a map of Venice the name of the church, seen across the water, which made another great impression at the time; from the maps I cannot decide whether it was the Chiesa di San Giorgio or the Chiesa della Salute.

Is an imperfect memory which structures a few attitudes well more valuable than a total recall which shapes nothing? I’m not sure. It’s disquieting to forget anything. I suppose I’m lucky that Venice is recalled so often on the screen and has been depicted in so many paintings, since, as I say here, recalling that city still gives me, despite the feeling of having missed out, an odd sense of arrival.

Alan Marshfield

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