FLASHES

Sometimes in the middle of a sentence when my mind is not on guard
a flash comes boldly forward wiping away everything in an instant
leaving only a field of summer green wheat with distant mountains
or a Kadazan farmer slashing at the jungle with a machete
or the face smiling and shoulders of someone I knew well once.
Who knows where they come from, these replays of snatches of life?
Perhaps a distant sound or beam of light or soft cool breeze
comes in sideways activating some retrieval mechanism
that locates in the stacks or drawers of the archive of my memory
mostly wonderful but sometimes disturbing pictures and feelings.

But what about that other kind of memory flash
that comes only once or twice every decade
showing me a piece of experience that never was mine,
that comes out of some residue of a former life or from my forebears
reassuring me that there are threads in the fabric of my existence
I did not select or put in place from which I cannot disengage?