Breast Patches of Orange Feathers and that Smell of the Crushed Leaves

Anything too novel
You can’t recall at all—
This goes for many dreams,

Hallucinations, near
Death experiences,
And travels to strange lands—

What you retain is what
You can name, and mostly
That’s familiar to you.

You have one workaround—
Recast ineffably
Novel phenomena

Using familiar words,
Tales, and explanations
Of more usual things.

Thus, fragmentary dreams
Made of dimmed sensations
Welded to powerful

Emotions, if recalled
At all, get told as tales,
Prophecies, or lessons,

And something similar,
Mutatis mutandis,
For hallucinations

And experiences
Rescued from near brain death.
Thus, the discoverers

Of worlds new to themselves
Reapply many names
Of known plants and creatures

Or known social systems
And known geographic
Features to these marvels

Bearing vague resemblance,
Wildly unrelated.
Come to think of it, words

Are all phenomena
For bridging from the known
Into the unknown, so

Memories can travel
Along without dying.
Robins sing in hemlocks.