Analysis of Remember This, Friend

About this poem

There is the popular misconception, even among psychiatrists, psychologists, and social scientists, as expert students of the human soul, that we possess a psyche, failing to recognize that it is more correct to state the opposite. How can we ever own or possess that of which we, as conscious beings, are truly unconscious of, especially in our latent state of dreams? Consider this, and meditate upon it night and day: How can we possess that which is the very source of our active imagination? This one-stanza Tanka poem is better understood when coupled with an earlier poem I wrote, called “The Script of Our Lives,” suggesting that the lives we lead, are not as much scripted or led by us, as it is furtively scripted and led by the psyche as our guide.  more »