Step well © Swarna Rajagopalan, 2004

 

Moving Sale

Lump in my throat.
Stone in my heart.
Tears that sit in my soul
unable to leave
any more than I am.

What the mind knows
about change and transience
finds no home in the heart
which holds on tight to every passing moment.

Each face, each voice
each piece of cloth or furniture,
all sacred relics of moments in my life
in which I was clinging to other relics.

I have stood before my future
willing it open with every password
my extensive vocabulary holds.
And now, frozen by waiting and
petrified by fear, I cannot pass through
its open portals.

My mind urges me to seize the moment
but my hands are full of the past
and my heart too full in the present
to step forward with the boldness needed.

I cling to objects that will tell
future archaeologists
nothing about who I am or
what has been important in my life.

A chair, a tape, a book, a dress--
none of which are me
or even my most important acquisitions—
stand between me and my life
like dragons and gargoyles.
I have no idea who they protect.

Take a day to grieve,
I tell myself,
and then pull yourself together,
seize the moment, and leave.


Swarna
Urbana
July 13, 2003

 

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