A Clear Day and No Memories
A Clear Day and No Memories - context Summary
Published 1950
Published in 1950 in The Auroras of Autumn, this brief free-verse lyric presents a cleared, de-personalized present. It rejects memories of past lives and people, depicting an air "clear of everything" that carries no meanings. The poem frames perception as an impersonal, shallow spectacle and an invisible activity, conveying a late-career austerity in which personal history dissolves and consciousness is stripped of narrative.
Read Complete AnalysesNo soldiers in the scenery, No thoughts of people now dead, As they were fifty years ago, Young and living in a live air, Young and walking in the sunshine, Bending in blue dresses to touch something, Today the mind is not part of the weather. Today the air is clear of everything. It has no knowledge except of nothingness And it flows over us without meanings, As if none of us had ever been here before And are not now: in this shallow spectacle, This invisible activity, this sense.
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