| Throwing
Away the Past
For days I haul boxes from the shed
and sit on a bench by the back door
to sort through twenty-some years
of files that hold old dreams
within musty manila folders.
Sheets of yellowed paper, typewritten,
go into white plastic trash bags.
Paper clips tossed onto a cardboard lid
make rejection letters into music.
I cannot read the “no” and “sorry” replies,
but save the few sweet acceptances
attached to articles and poems
that somehow made the final cut.
How odd that someone else decided
my worthiness, perhaps on a day when
nothing at all had gone right for them.
I continued, over and over again, to fall
victim to some stranger’s hasty whim.
Now, decades later, I recognize the dust
and ash of my words as miracles
that rise to float like motes in the sun,
transporting me into a brilliance
that can never be thrown away.
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