Material Memory

The tendency of some forms
To return to prior shapes
After having been deformed,

While others wholly fracture
Only to remain broken,
Is a feature of physics,

Chemistry, molecular
Bonds, and so forth. Character
Itself is rooted in bonds

Between atoms, but it plays
Out in ripples between words
And people deploying them

To characterize their bonds
With each other. Resilience,
As personality trait,

Is curiously inapt
As a descriptor of flesh,
But you see, the way we work,

The way all your contexts shift
Our possible related
Meanings, invested like light

Invests in the shifting clouds,
Like experiments invest
In quantum phenomena

So time flies like an arrow,
But fruit flies like bananas,
Makes it difficult to tell

Whether the material
Memory runs parallel
To character, is nearly

The same thing, is the basis
Of every return to form
Or phrases coincidence.