things and memories all a-mingle
what a gift to us
can be the things a person leaves behind
when the spark leaves the eyes,
for we make choices in what we have,
what we keep,
that reveal pieces of us
through the pieces they are:
books, pictures, memorabilia,
and the stuff that is more trash than treasured memory,
but still stuff that helped us get through a day,
we follow the daughter into her mother’s house
where the things of a lifetime fill the surfaces,
are piled upon themselves,
the treasured and the trash all a-mingle,
the daughter both daunted with the scale of the project
and pleased with the possibility of bringing order
back into the chaos death left behind,
it is a gift to be simple,
but each thing in life can hold a moment,
moments we treasure and want to remember,
so we tuck them away
and hope the thing will help us call back the time,
order is an elusive guide,
and often one not to follow,
too much order denies the temporary disorder of the creative,
and substitutes stasis for growth,
when our ancestors were migratory,
necessity demanded culling away what to keep and carry,
now the boxes of our houses can hold a lot,
so that yesterday can be with us in what we see around,
yet it’s a yesterday harder and harder to retrieve,
throughout the house our niece labors to clean and set right,
a lot of her mother lives in the things
saved but not sorted,
hoarded but not prioritized,
a wonderful woman lived here,
one haunted by the people and times she had lost,
her daughter labors to clean out, prioritize,
to maybe share with family and friends
the things, the furniture,
that might call up and preserve
the wonderful parts of the past,
and carry it into the indeterminacy of the future,
the daughter and the mother are one,
each step and choice in the clean-up
reinforces the memories that can reach to hold
more and more of what is lost.
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