Loops of Memory*

I had forgotten to tell him
about their presence
until it occurred to me.

"Would you love to join the discussion
with Chomsky, Piaget,
and the others?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said kindly,
"Just tell me when".

That was during the conference
at Abbaye de Roy-au-mont,
just outside Paris.

He sat patiently
and followed the speakers.

It was a loud conference
of op-positions.

But his doodle of cats
and other real fantastic animals,
I can't recall exactly,
were stunning...

On the way to our last lunch,
Noam Chomsky,
who had dominated this gathering
of Nobel Prize winning biologists and world famous mathematicians,
philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, (& etc),

walked up to him,
and shyly said:

"Perhaps
you remember me,
when I sat in your class at Harvard
with Roman Jakobson?"

He looked at Chomsky,
and slowly said:

"I'm sorry, but no".

Those were the only words
he would utter
in that conference.

By Achirri Chibikom 2009