One can perhaps remember...

One can perhaps remember 

growing up a certain way. 

And then have memories 

mean something else in retrospect. 

A toddler, for example, might 

remember an attempt to kill the president 

not for the event but for the feeling 

in his mother's eyes when she heard the news. 

And then that child might years later 

see half-remembered footage 

and have context 

for a lot of other things. 

There might be truth 

to these “new” thoughts, 

if one can call thoughts “new” 

that seem so rooted in the past. 

But with what eyes, what heart, what mind 

does one look back? 

And what exactly 

are we looking at?