THE BOX
There is a charge given to us;
the living,
by the dead:
clean, sort and
discard.

Tucked away in a corner of
the basement were those
things, sealed with
faded plastic tape
and smelling of mildew.
Each containing something
of special meaning to the now
deceased.

Things like old shoes, hats,
a broken handle on a pot that was to
be mended but never quite gotten around to.
Knickknacks of a life lived
stored in brown cardboard
and stacked
neatly away.

There, in a box much like the rest,
written in red crayon, was….
“Mary, for you, open with care.”
After a while I opened the lid, just
a crack so as to peer in.
Pooled in the light,
sat a clay flowerpot
with metal spoon.
it stared back at me like a
single sliver tear drop from an empty eye.
Beside it lay a battered Winnie the Pooh,
my favorite.

There lay an equally tattered blanket
that had been dragged
perhaps a thousand miles.
Thimbles, string, so many things;
that I could never put down
until the very end.
Until it was time to stop being a
child.

Time to grow up, time to wear a dress,
and patten leather shoes,
no more pink ribbons to adorn my hair .
Time hung like the ageing boxes that
surrounded me.

Until a gentile hand touch my shoulder
and my husband’s voice called
me back from my childhood days.
“Close the box Mary and come way.”