A Set of Directions

...Let the healing fountains start...
—W.H. Auden

Forgetting is easy, it's remembering that's hard
not because a mind wanders off and can't find a way back
and not because the years too far away dim
some things simply remain in an abyss, a crevasse
shake a memory loose, release it from the dark
and bring it up to the light, loosen the threads
and set it down next to the remembering that's easy