SEPARATING

Today I lived my life with ghosts
Both living and dead
Your face, their face
Slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor
Hundreds of pictures of you and them
Hundreds of moments and moments and moments
Too numerous and caught in that web of time
Dangled on a cobweb so thin, so fine
It could break but does not snap
And lasts and lasts
And holds and holds
All there, suspended in that instant
Before falling to the floor,
Or in the box of memories. To be kept.

So where do you reside, in the bin or the box?
Where do you live for future’s worth?
Will you be cut adrift or salvaged in those stepping stones to the past.

And yet, she still picked up those photos of you
Pained and dulled
Still confused and stabbed by what has happened over time.
She saw your face and paused. Reflected.
Mother.
Father.
She then gently collected up those separating images of you and me
And saved them in the box
One day for all to see in times to come.
She decided not to put you in the bin.
Unlike me.

She rescued her childhood.
Put down a marker in the sand
And said stop to the sea
To the waves and waves
That break over time and pain
Saved you from the blankless pile of Venice and Florence
And Christmas and beaches and Barbies and laughter
And with a simple dignity
She gave you back some worth.