Every time my sister stays with me, she leaves a few things behind in random, yet obvious, places.
I make a pile of them as I find them. Usually, they are small. A hairclip, some papers, and usually at least one item no one should ever lose track of. Undoubtedly, a shirt or two will also linger behind. I try them on. We have different tastes, so her clothes on me look like someone attempted to dress a beanie baby in 80’s Barbie clothes.
This time, it’s a few pages of comics, guitar tabs, some euros, and her passport. A few flashcards from studying for her MCLEX test lie scattered under the desk. I will keep one to put in my makeshift scrapbook of objects that help me remember what has happened in a year. Things of absolutely no intrinsic value are the only things I’m interested in keeping. Things of value make me nervous. I’m always relieved when they break or are lost.
I glance at the growing pile, a monument to … forgetfulness? Unlikely. To what, then?
I do not waste time wondering why she habitually leaves things behind. No one wonders why there are messages on cave walls or graffiti beneath overpasses. No one wonders why there are pyramids or why there are roadside crosses or graveyards or world records. It is for the same non-reason I once wrote tiny initials on the fake leather of my bus seat in high school. Each of us can only be in one location and one time; all of humanity is in rebellion against this undefeatable condition. Knowing that we must move on, and knowing that someday time moves on without us, we are compelled to leave traces of ourselves behind.
Maybe this is why people have children.
As I dust surfaces and straighten bed covers, I recall a question Carl Sandburg asked in his poem Haze.
Is it only a fishbone on the beach? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
He questions the temporariness of life. The poem is about the cycles of humanity, the past and future mingling like a sunset on the horizon. He ends the poem ,
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keeps their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?
listing natural cycles of rebirth. As if to say, “I don’t understand why, but I know that this is not the end.”
As I dust surfaces and straighten bed covers, I recall a question Carl Sandburg asked in his poem Haze.
Is it only a fishbone on the beach? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
He questions the temporariness of life. The poem is about the cycles of humanity, the past and future mingling like a sunset on the horizon. He ends the poem ,
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keeps their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?
listing natural cycles of rebirth. As if to say, “I don’t understand why, but I know that this is not the end.”
No comments:
Post a Comment