Beware of Crazy Ramblings:

12th grade AP Literature stands out in my memory as being pretty traumatic. Actually, as I type this up instead of studying for my Final tomorrow, I realize how I am displaying my own irrational cognition. Blah blah. Anyway, besides the fact that I loved every second of English class, I just remember my teacher Mrs. Linz pounding one fact into my brain: MARRIAGE=DEVASTATION. Gee wiz! Why would we talk about that? I have no clue. Must've been those books they made us read.

I digress. One thing that horrified both EP Playa and I was when Mrs. Linz went to great lengths to describe how your high school lovers will soon slip out of your conscious and by spring semester of your first year of college, you won't even remember their names. Now, I believe the direct quote from her was: "many soft caresses I felt and lips I brushed up against in dark cars at night and while I remember the sweet touches, their names have long since slipped my mind."

My point is, I am married now and I am not devastated.

But my real point is that I bumped into this poem the other day in the ODU bookstore and it is to blame for the flooding memories of AP Devastation (as we took to calling it). Ted Kooser is a jerk for stealing my imagery, but I will forgive him because it is clunky at best. Also, cool poem.


TECTONICS - Kooser


In only a few months
there begin to be fissures
in what we remember,
and within a year or two,
the facts break apart
one from another
and slowly begin to shift
and turn, grinding,
pushing up over each other
until their shapes
have been changed
and the past has become
a new world.
And after many years,
even a love affair,
one lush green island
all to itself,
perfectly detailed
with even a candle
softly lighting a smile,
may slide under the waves
like Atlantis,
scarcely rippling the heart.