Another week, another Big Tent Poetry prompt to respond to. Where does the time go? I suppose I might have written about something else altogether, if the need had not arisen for me to approach “the boxes” in search of an important paper. Funny how that works.
Keeper of the Relics
In my house is a storage room,
and in that storage room are boxes,
lots of boxes, the kind you can buy
at a moving and storage facility
or even an office supply store,
and in those boxes are relics,
old letters and postcards, the matching
skirts my father brought back one year
from Greece for my sisters and me,
my mother’s knitting needles and yarn,
left over from long abandoned projects—
things too baffling to keep, too precious
to throw away, things that defy
categorization, the detritus of a life,
two lives, well spent, now gone before.
Read other responses here.
Lovely poem. My first attempts at this prompt centred on the loft, with much the same ideas as yours, but it just wouldn’t flow for me, so my admiration for yours is sincere.
Thank you, Viv. I think the muse picks us, not the other way around.
Yes, it’s amazing what we hold on to, isn’t it? Worthless and priceless; a life neatly packaged.
And the lesson is… wait– I’m not sure what the lesson is! Do I dare sort the boxes?
It’s sort of an hourglass you’ve written- general at the first, narrowing toward the specific, but not quite closing before it flares again. I like “too baffling to keep” .
An hourglass– I like that image!
Cara,
I love this.
It is amazing what we hold on to.
Pamela
Pamela– so true. I admit to being a bit of a packrat myself.
I love the title of your poem. It has just a bit of the fantasy/surreal feel to it. And I find that when I start going through my Mother’s things, I can get lost for long periods of time in her past, as well as my own. Thank you for this one,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth– I’m glad you could relate. It does feel a bit surreal to me to be responsible for winnowing through my parents’ possessions and trying to make sense of them all. Do I keep an item if I have no idea what its significance was? Several people recommended I wait a few years, before even trying to sort the boxes. The most difficult of all to approach are the old letters, windows to the past, and to grandparents I never knew. Someday…
This is so real and really paints a picture.
My mom is going to be 90 next week and she has boxes and boxes of “relics.” My poem references a room in her house.
Well done
Victoria
http://liv2write2day.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/big-tent-poetry-timekeepers/
Ah, the relics! Congratulations to your mom, Victoria. I hope she is well and has many more years ahead of her!
Beautiful! You’ve written this with such feeling. I recognize this scene – and am busily contributing to the confusion my own children will face. It’s kind of a shame we can’t take it with us.
A shame indeed! Although I am sentimental about objects, my children alas are not, and I fear that when the time comes, there will appear a large dumpster in my driveway…
Cara, well done poem. I too can relate. I too have things from my parents’ & the last one died many years ago. I don’t think people realize during their lifetimes what all they will leave behind and how difficult it might be for the heirs.
Mary- So true. Until I was confronted with the enormity of emptying my parents’ home, I never realized how many objects I too have amassed.
I love this one, Cara! It’s like a nesting doll to me. I love opening up old forgotten boxes and remembering way back when.
Laurie– it is a bit like opening Matryoshka dolls, one by one. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always had such a fascination with them.
Wonderful poem. It leaves me with tears in my eyes.
things that defy
categorization, the detritus of a life,
two lives, well spent, now gone before
Wow – beautifully composed . . .
Thank you, Nan. For the longest time,I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why my parents saved so many things, but now, as “the keeper of the relics”, I understand perfectly. Each item, like an artifact, reveals bits and pieces of my parents’ past, making me feel at times almost like an archaeologist.
Wonderful, Cara. Captures so much in such few lines. I am particularly fond of …
“things too baffling to keep, too precious/ to throw away, things that defy”
… as it shows the dilemma so well.
I also like the contrast between the “any old box” and what they hold.