The day-to-day momentum
carries us with it,
making it impossible to imagine
this all shall pass.
Too much to think this will end,
taking us into oblivion alongside
all of our carefully honed plans,
our exquisite attention to detail.
Who can contemplate that one day
after our turn is done –
and not so very far away –
another, perhaps even a stranger,
will toss into careless piles
our high heels,
daytimers, old Christmas cards,
our favorite sunglasses, our library cards.
Who can comprehend that one day
some distant cousin will glance at a worn photograph
of a laughing, red-haired woman,
and ask with fleeting interest:
“Wasn’t she the writer?”
A sequence of my poems has been published in a hardcover book entitled The Music of Leaving Poems by Tricia McCallum