The Remains
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.
What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.
My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.
Notes
Duffy's Valentine finds love in the uncomfortable layers we reveal to one another; Mark Strand's The Remains begins peeling away something even more personal. Names, possessions, family photographs, and eventually the people he loves are all set aside, as though he could discover what remains of himself once everything that has shaped his life is gone. Yet the more he tries to empty himself, the more his past insists on staying. We are made through our relationships, memories, and the passage of time, so even the desire to escape them carries their influence. Strand's final paradox captures this beautifully: he changes, remains himself, and discovers that a life cannot simply be undone by wishing its history away. October's decay becomes an inward process here, as the familiar pieces of identity slowly loosen their hold. The clocks can be turned back, the photographs revisited, and the names spoken one last time, but time has already done its work. Something of us remains in everything we have lived. #MarkStrand #impermanence #identity #Poetry #existentialism