Poetry Wednesday: Pondering the Question
Last summer, I challenged readers to write a "burning house"
poem: if your people and pets were safe, what would you rescue from
your burning house? This was Stacy's poem, and I'm privileged to share
it with you.
Feel free to share your "burning house" poem with me.
Pondering the Question
I.
If I had to
leave my home?
Evacuate.
Flee before
the flames,
Retreat from
the advancing wildfire.
To preserve
my life, my loved one’s lives.
What would I
take?
What would
be important to me?
Too
important to leave?
I have been
pondering the question.
Thinking.
Not of ID
and insurance,
Titles,
deeds and bank documents.
What
possessions do I need?
What
material goods?
What
objects? What things?
What stuff
do I need from my life to continue that life?
Well,
obviously, I will need my computer, my phone.
How could my
life as I know it continue if I lose all of my electronic information?
What else
would I have to take?
Photographs
of course!
All those irreplaceable
images and memories of people and places I love.
Captured on
paper and stored in boxes.
(Not
uploaded to digital format yet because I do not have the time)
Scrapbooks
and mementos of my life, I will need these.
My jewelry.
My Grandma’s
ring.
My Mom’s
favorite cross,
The one we
put on her for her funeral viewing.
The earrings
I have been collecting since High School.
Surely I
must have these precious items!
Would I have
time to get my books?
The ones I
paid retail for?
The ones
that were beloved gifts?
Thrift store
and library sale treasures bought on the cheap?
All of
those?
I have to
have my books!
To have my
own life still, after the fire, won’t I need my books?
Where do I
stop? Draw the line?
Do I take
all my clothes?
Coffee cups
and espresso maker?
Chef knife
and silicone spatula?
Art,
furniture, sheets and towels?
Where will
it end?
What do I
really need?
I have been
pondering the question.
Thinking
hard about my life.
Considering
what I need.
My life, my
loved one’s lives and maybe, just maybe, a file of important papers.
That is what
I need.
My life, my loved
one’s lives.
Really.
That is all
I need.
Not all I
would want,
Not all I
would hope to save.
But really,
all I would need.
II.
If I had to
leave my home?
Evacuate.
Flee before
the flames,
Retreat from
the advancing wildfire.
To preserve
my life, my loved one’s lives.
What would I
take?
What would
be important to me?
While
pondering the question,
Thinking
hard or in passing thoughts
I wonder.
What do I
really need?
I know my
computer, my phone, would ease the transition to a post fire life
My photos, mementos
and books would aid in continuity from my pre-fire life.
Art,
housewares, personal possessions would soften the move to a new place.
A new home. A
new life.
Pondering
the question and thinking of all my stuff.
Would I need
it? Have to have it?
The
possessions? Objects? Things?
Need? No.
Want? Yes.
Of course I
would want them.
Those
special treasures, those precious objects are links.
Tangible
links to people, places and times I love.
Physical
objects representing things I have done and seen and shared.
They
reinforce my memories, aid my recall,
Of those
people and places and actions that shaped me and my life.
These
emotionally weighted objects trigger a response in my brain
Connecting
me in my present to me in my past.
Losing these
tangible pieces of my life would be brutal.
Hard.
Devastating.
Yes. Losing
them would be devastating.
III.
Pondering
the question
I know that
if I had my life, my loved one’s lives
That I could
live without all the rest.
Yes. Thinking
hard I could lose it all.
Every object
big and small.
Every item
expensive or cheap.
Every thing
important or trivial.
I would
survive losing them all.
I would
mourn the loss.
But I would
survive.
Mostly I
would mourn the weakness this loss would generate in my memory chain.
Mourn the
vacuum, the gaps, the access to these precious clues.
Clues that
cement my life experiences to my person.
But, while
pondering the question,
When I think
of what I know, what I remember
How much
these memories are connected to objects,
How many
objects and their accompanying memories I have forgotten, shed or lost.
How in my
present,
I do not
know which objects will be memory lodestones for the future me.
I do not
know if objects will be memory lodestones for the future me.
I do not know
that the future me will have any memories.
I think
about how fragile memories are.
How easily
lost or broken.
That makes
me think of my Grandma.
Her loss of
memory.
Her loss of
Identity.
Her
inevitable loss of life.
She still
has the physical objects of her long and full life.
Her papers
and books, photos, art and household.
She has her
house but has lost her home.
This place
and these things no longer have any connection to her and her person.
The wildfire
of Alzheimer’s has burned them to ash.
Much like
her I have collected things,
Things I
plan to love and enjoy and the build a life with.
Pondering
the thought of losing my things and then extending the thought,
Facing the
possibility of losing even the basic knowledge of those I love.
Losing the
basic knowledge of who I am.
What would
be left? Anything?
Will she,
would I, in losing our things, our memories, our very identities
Lose
everything?
Pondering
that thought,
I do not
think so.
I hope that
we do not.
I have faith
that we do not!
I believe that
even though her memory has gone, that one day my memory may go
That in our
brains and bodies, our very cells,
That every
moment, experience and loved one is recorded and remembered.
Safeguarded
by our souls.
- by Stacy McKnight
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