Do you know that poem by W.H. Auden? “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”…. I encountered it first at grammar school, and the occasion sticks in my memory chiefly because of the vigorous disagreement about it between my English teacher and myself. I suppose it’s not too late to acknowledge the fact that he was right.
It is in my mind today because of the funeral of a friend and former neighbour who died suddenly recently. Under the current restrictions we were supposed to observe the funeral remotely, on Zoom. As it happened that didn’t work out, so I sat in the studio and spent some time thinking about her and her family. It wasn’t long before my mind turned to wider reflections about time and memory and relationships.
It came to me that memories are rather like mine shafts. They do drill down into the past, but they give you access to all kinds of galleries and tunnels that branch off in different directions, and resurface in unexpected places. The original act of remembering is no guide to where the process will lead.