Absent Recall

 

A perfect day to be out on a forest trail in the warmth 

and sunlit extravagance of an Indian Summer day

the acrid fragrance of desiccated foliage, the sound 

of chickadees and nuthatches flitting through the 

conifers, the filtered rays of the sun through the forest

canopy warming your back and you were glad to be 

there in a landscape that clutched at your very essence. 

You barely noticed as you ascended a wooded pathway

the middle-aged woman with a small child beside her 

waving a stick, alarming your little dogs, but nodded 

and smiled hello in passing. Then stopped, puzzled as

she asked if you had once worked for a name so familiar 

your mind knew the unfamiliar face knew you even

if you had no idea who she was. How was it possible 

that someone you may have briefly been introduced to 

thirty years ago recognized you despite a quarter-century

passage you wonder as you agree yes I did once long ago. 

Does this woman possess a prodigious memory that

delves deep and stores minutely inconsequential details

or is there that about you that may be unforgettable

as unlikely as that seems, breaking into conversation 

with a woman recently married back then, but now a 

mother of four mature women and grandmother to a 

multitude of offspring, whose face you cannot recall.