In the poem “Memory Green” by Archibald MacLeish, the speaker imagines that at the end of next year, a day of unusually warm weather might arrive. This weather will remind whomever he’s speaking to in second person—either the reader, an unidentified person, or the universal “you”—of the smells of summer. He imagines that the person will feel the wind coming from the southwest, and, despite the fact that it is winter, will smell rain and summer. The wind will cause the remaining leaves on the trees to fall.
This person will walk through the fallen leaves wherever he is; either along a street called Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, Germany, or on a wharf in Paris, France. The speaker imagines that the person will experience thoughts that shift the same way clouds move across the sky.
He predicts that the person will not know why, amidst these thoughts, he suddenly feels moved emotionally—so moved that tears come to his eyes. The speaker then predicts that the person will continue to stand in the warm wind amidst the falling leaves and wonder about this feeling. As readers, we then discover that this person’s feeling might be nostalgia, as the speaker imagines that he will wonder about his memory and who he was with at the time.
Then, the speaker declares that the person will not be able to remember details of this memory, despite his efforts, but will continue to stand in the same location feeling the wind on his neck and arms, and smelling the scents of a garden. Finally, the speaker imagines the person will try to recall the memory again, closing his eyes and asking out loud, “Whom? Ah where?”
