Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Erased

Image creator is unknown.
I'm sorry for the darker tone my post is taking today , but I saw something on another website which deeply affected me in a strange, sad way.  My response to such things is to try and write about them.  The March Challenge posted a prompt today about writing and erasingWe Write Poems gave a prompt of 'musty moments.'


Erasure

A family history should be a musty moment affair
of brownish curling photographs
and ribbon-tied yellowing letters,
of strawberry jam recipes written in faded blue ink
and steamer trunks full of odd gloves and army medals.

But when such things do not exist
because they were erased
along with the people
who should have grown old
while they were telling the tales,

then those moments can never become musty
and there is nothing
except vague recollection;
sad words we once heard as children
by the adults who whispered them late one night.

###

13 comments:

  1. Wow! Wow! This is powerful and moving and I have goosebumps. Thank you for this. It is beautiful in its sadness.
    margo

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  2. Holy cow! I love what you did here, RJ. The sadness is palpable in this piece. It is a beautiful.

    Pamela

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  3. This is one of your best, RJ. Exceptional work.

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  4. 'Writing out' the melancholy is a good way of dealing with it (and much quieter than pounding the piano!)

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  5. When we are young, family history means nothing. When we are old, the memories we threw out in youth are priceless. Too late, the crime is understood.

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  6. apt combination.
    I am pleased.

    invite you to join us today,
    thanks for the attention..

    we are about less than 8 hours to go before closing..

    hope to see you in.

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  7. Wow, RJ! Not so light but so tenderly penned. I can feel the emptiness, the loss, and I love the details in the first stanza.

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  8. This is very moving in its simplicity. We can feel the sadness without a lot of words & explainations.

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  9. RJ, never apologize for a dark tone. I will second what Kim said. This is one of your best. It is the stuff of real life, which sometime can be deep AND dark.

    (On a personal note, if I avoided the 'dark' right now, I wouldn't be writing much. I prefer to write........)

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  10. I understand this post and the reason behind it, Randi. I remember Hanna's sorrow at not having any of her family's crystal mementos and all the photos that were lost. They made those that were sent to her later by relatives who got out in time all the more precious. Anyone who thinks Hitler was brilliant (including Glenn Beck, it's true) deserves some real history lessons. Love you, Amy

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  11. As so frequently happens with your poetry, RJ, you make the hairs on the back of my neck prickle and stand up. A superb take on your necessarily dark theme.

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  12. Powerful and humbling. It's sad and beautiful. It reminded me of my father and what I didn't learn from him before he was gone. It made me cry. Thank you.

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  13. nice piece of writing here RJ.....thanks for sharing your words

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