#100sciencepoems 21: Wordsworth Remembers

My friend Billie tells me that daffodils contain a chemical called galantamine which can help treat early onset dementia.

The only poem I know about daffodils is also about memory.

Coincidence?

(With apologies to William Wordsworth)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

(it’s years since I explored those hills)

But I remember still, the crowd

Of daffodils.

Continuous as the stars that shine

My memory from that bright day

Stretches in never-ending line:

Fades not away.

While others lose the thoughts they seek

And falter, I remember yet

The distant past, and just last week:

I don’t forget.

Perhaps I owe my sharp old brain

To that inspiring, fragrant scene

For daffodils make something named

Galantamine

And now, when on my couch I lie

Thanks to the pollen once inhaled

MY brain’s retained that inward eye

And has not failed.