Trinkets

Wrote this last summer, and thought I'd share with y'all.


Trinkets

A memento only (half) understood,
like broken English halting
stuttering on perfect lips,
buried under years and years,
strata of days, beginnings and
endings, broken grass.
A (shining) golden ring, the delicate
handle of a china cup, perhaps
held in a gloved hand (shaking:
will father say yes, you may?).
And so my hopes and fears, soaring
plans and devilish secrets
will rest in another stratum:
a ring, an emblem, buried like all the rest.
Perhaps you will find my ring, connecting
us over years (weeks) and
wonder what life it surrounded, what
good and darkness, what joy,
now lost, a memento of my life.

In our young country, this is
a revelation, a horror, an obsession.
But you in older worlds, living on
the gold and dirt and bones of
generations piled together
must scoff at our (my) fascinations
and musings. Perhaps not wisdom,
but daily use, resignation, making
these memento mori little more
than trinkets.

~ Julie K. Rose, 2008