Inventory of another incarnation

Taking a lingering review
of the effects I’ve accumulated;
memory-imbued.
How I gathered them.
How they failed in
their task to bring comfort.
Which should I keep?
Where I’m going,
there is no need for them.
The recollection must suffice;
of bird’s eye maple and blown glass -
golden trinkets
and hand painted ceramics.
Until memory dies, too.

I’ve let people go easily enough.
Prized relationships that
slipped away into their morning
or disappeared through twilight
with words of anger sinking,
sorrowed eyes flickering -
extinguished.
But when I looked inside
I found them,
tucked in pockets and
locked in trunks;
recklessly placed on the edge
of forgetfulness.

Here in the external world,
I held onto things
and let them define me.
Now at long last,
I must open my hands and say -
See, I have nothing after all,
nothing at all;
but you - my beloved.
You who stayed hidden for so long;
who wraps your passion
around me at my will.
Who attends my thought
and steps back
to let me stumble
when I must.

And when I’m laying
in the grime of another descent,
you raise me -
you do.


© 2002 Melissa Songer