dust or no dust

With the intention of cleaning up and clearing out, I have been terribly sidetracked.

Or, maybe "fortunately sidetracked" is more accurate.

I felt that passing books along was an easy place to start, 

that the spaces on the shelves would prove to me that I was making progress. 

I didn't count on finding notebooks filled with poems and bits of prose written around 2010.

Some I wrote during a poetry workshop given by my friend Barbara Pelman, poet extraordinaire!

 Others I wrote afterwards.

One poem I wrote, dated November 2009, seems now to address my desire to keep some bits of myself back, 

holding tight until I feel safe

and keeping my vulnerable self hidden.

The first line was written by Rick Bragg in his memoir, The Prince of Frogs:

                  "So he put the dream in a box to keep it clean" 

Using this line to begin, I wrote:

"So he put the dream in a box to keep it clean 

removed from the wind that carried

dust and debris from the narrow lanes

to keep it clear from the soil of memories

the grime of family despair

and the fingerprints of time.

He put the dream in the box

with the lid closed tight

against peering eyes 

and probing fingers

where his son would find it

after he was gone."

Rereading my poem again and again I hear a deep sadness, even a cruelty within it.

Rather than a box with a lid closed tight, 

as in this poem, I hope instead to give precious shelter to my dreams,

and to risk sharing them with my family and close friends....dust or no dust!