Today we are considering moments in time that stand out from time; they are the momentous days we recall and revisit, year in and year out as holidays, as anniversaries. Formal or informal, they are replayed in memory and may even be attached to tokens.

Here Cecilia Woloch is recalling her “Anniversary”

“Didn’t I stand there once, 
white-knuckled, gripping the just-lit taper, 
swearing I’d never go back? 
And hadn’t you kissed the rain from my mouth? 
And weren’t we gentle and awed and afraid, 
knowing we’d stepped from the room of desire 
into the further room of love?… [read in full]

Whilst Charles Reznikoff in this ‘Feast of Booths’ recalls all the Jewish holidays with his “Meditations on the Fall and Winter Holidays”

“This was a season of our fathers' joy: 
not only when they gathered grapes and the fruit of trees 
in Israel, but when, locked in the dark and stony streets, 
they held—symbols of a life from which they were banished 
but to which they would surely return— 
the branches of palm trees and of willows, the twigs of the myrtle,
and the bright odorous citrons. 

This was the grove of palms with its deep well
in the stony ghetto in the blaze of noon; 
this the living stream lined with willows; 
and this the thick-leaved myrtles and trees heavy with fruit 
in the barren ghetto—a garden 
where the unjustly hated were justly safe at last....”[read in full]

And Dylan Thomas once again writes a “Poem on His Birthday”

“...This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave 
He celebrates and spurns 
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age; 
Herons spire and spear. 
Under and round him go 
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails, 
Doing what they are told, 
Curlews aloud in the congered waves 
Work at their ways to death, 
And the rhymer in the long tongued room, 
Who tolls his birthday bell, 
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;” [read in full]

And so for today’s prompt we are revisiting Emily Romano’s Memento poetry style:

Poetry Rules:

Poetry Theme:
a holiday or an anniversary (formal or informal)

Helpful Links:

1. We’re revisiting as Grace gave us the Memento prompt back in January 2023
2. The memento poetry style – Shadow Poetry

Once you have posted your poem according to the guidelines above, do add it to Mr Linky below then go visiting and reading other contributors as that is half the fun of our dVerse gatherings.
Please also TAG dVerse in your post, or include a link at the end of your poem that leads readers back to this dVerse prompt

[N.B. Mr Linky closes Saturday 3 p.m. EST]