Anamnesis
by Fred Gallagher
We are made of such remembrance
more than we know. The smoke
of chapels wafts round lamps
in cumulus fare for us, under the
asomatous, fixed folk of spectral
stained glass, riding the rays of ages.
Downy wings flutter extant in backyards
or in the hazel wood, countenances on
yellowing photographs, a brother who
saved me, his arm flung round me
in Eisenhower days, gone as of a
Christmas morning. I hear him whisper
in halcyon communions, in Spanish
endearments, in a tongue best suited,
he said, for sacred intimacies. Hearts
and minds are an occluded front, the
present a rolling storm cloud over
the past, and over and over against
eternal time we brush. Like scented
cerates the sectors of our souls are soothed
and loosed upon a numinous history where
bread is not bread, wine not wine. Memory,
the time lapse motion of seeds splitting,
grain growing, vines, all to taste the reach
of splendid liturgies, candles lit, allowing
for even the brittle breezes of my winter
dreams and at long last, the resurrected
and cherished secrets of our love.
Fred Gallagher is a writer whose faith informs his poetry, short stories and essays with an incarnational worldview. His work has appeared in the St. Austin Review, Agora, Sanskrit, and the Cold Mountain Review, among others. He was a finalist in the 2024 Catholic Literary Arts Sacred Poetry Contest and winner of Prime Number Magazine's 2023 Annual Poetry Prize. He is also a Pushcart Prize nominee. He and his wife reside in Charlotte, NC.
