This essay is an attempt to find a central category integrating the totality of multilevel meanings inscribed in the work of Jan Polkowski. Pointing to the primary place of memory, as a kind of lens bringing together these diverse areas of meanings constitutive for Polkowski’s poetry, the author carries out a typology of memory, pointing to its two basic variants: individual memory and collective and historical memory. A reflection has also been made on the functions performed by memory in each of the separated semantic levels. The mechanisms of activating memory have also been shown, emphasizing the role of nature in this respect. The close relationship between the categories of nature, memory and metaphysics has also been emphasized.