Quintana's Poem & Her Mother & Her Mother's Poem

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Quintana Roo Dunne

Joan Didion

I continue opening boxes.

I find more faded and cracked photographs

than I ever again want to see.

I find many engraved invitations to the weddings

of people who are no longer married.

I find many mass cards from the funerals of people

whose faces I no longer remember.

In theory these mementos serve to bring back the moment.

In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately

 I appreciated the moment when it was here.

How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here

is something else I could never afford to see.

The source
The next Joan Didion page is  here.

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