Erased

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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 erasing.  We 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.

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