Ich habe meinen Regenschirm vergessen

Who would have cared I owned an umbrella,

let alone that I had forgotten it,

had I not written that note to myself?

If it had rained outside Plato's cave, they would

not have known it, but I know, as I stare

into the sunlight, that it rains sometimes,

somewhere, at times and places that I may

chance to be, sans umbrella in Turin

or, maybe, mindless in Sils Maria.

To bear or not to bear an umbrella,

that is the unbearable question, since

we cannot know that it is going to rain

when we reach our final destination.

Posterity may never know why I

wrote, "I have forgotten my umbrella",

nor what the meaning of my act entailed,

unless some ingenious Frenchman can

explain it to future generations.

But the paradox remains; I could not

have truly written, "I have forgotten" it

at the time of writing the note because

that was the time when I remembered it.

Clearly, then, it was not the existence

of the umbrella that I forgot but

rather not remembering to take it

with me to the place where I had not predicted

that it would rain; a place I now forget.

I am in some street, and it starts to rain,

but I find my umbrella is missing.

For some reason this seems significant,

so, I write a note to remind myself

not to forget it again, when there is rain.

"I have forgotten to bring my umbrella"

would have made plain the act is intended,

not the little shadow I forgot to keep

by me, as defence against bad weather.

But I may have left my umbrella on

the train, in the café, at the brothel

or anywhere else where it could have been

set down carelessly and quite forgotten.

Would our Frenchman think of that, I wonder?

No, he would be too busy undermining

my reputation by analysing

my forgetfulness, on one occasion,

as if this were a judgement on my work.

What really happened I fear to tell you

because it links me to an awful crime.

An acquaintance of mine, Monsieur X, say,

borrowed my umbrella, but on the way

home he was attacked by ruffians who tried

to rob him. In self-defence he stabbed one

in the chest and the other ran away.

Needless to say, my umbrella is stuck

in a place that's best forgotten by all.

*****