Theory of Memory
by Louise GluckLong, long ago, before I was a tormented artist, afflicted
with longing
yet incapable of forming durable attachments, long before this, I
was a glorious
ruler uniting all of a divided country—so I was told by the
fortune-teller
who examined my palm. Great things, she said, are ahead of
you, or perhaps
behind you; it is difficult to be sure. And yet, she added,
what is the difference?
Right now you are a child holding hands with a fortune-
teller. All the
rest is hypothesis and dream.
"Theory of Memory" by Louise Glück, from Faithful and Virtuous Night. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
[ via Writer's Almanac ]
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