A few years ago, I did a project on "Music Psychology." For one part, I researched several phenomena associated with music's miraculous power to transcend disability and heal people. This poem is written from the perspective of an acute amnesiac- a person who has no short-term memory retention and very little long-term. For reasons unknown, such people can sit down to a piano and play through a long-before memorized piece, coming back to themselves for a moment, but as soon as the music stops, they forget again.
Song of an Amnesiac
lost
trapped in a world with no meaning
drifting
through time
faces
so many strangers
know me
but i don't
i can't remember, who are you
what are we doing
why
and who am i...?
lost and alone
Then music- ah, the breath of life!
My fingers remember!
My voice knows the words!
The music brings me back
to this moment-
this past-
this "Me" inside.
I sing and rise up,
Whole again.
Found!
but then
the melody ends
i fade
with the notes
falling
into darkness
lost
who am i...?
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