Jim « JP » Hansen via Compfight
The last few days I’ve been visiting the family cabin in the north woods. A small place with an outdoor privy, it was built from local tamarack and spruce logs in the late 1940s. While it isn’t fancy, it is filled with all sorts of memories of my extended family. Here’s a poem about my grandfather that tries to be about more than a can of old nails.
To Make the Crooked Straight
On a rusty metal shelf
that stood on the dirt floor
of the shed behind the house:
three rusted Arco cans
filled with bent nails
pulled from a thousand used boards,
and, also, with hope —
to save the unsavory
to make the crooked straight
once again.
– Steve Peterson
We’ve been plowing through boxful after boxful and load after load of the same kind of optimism — this might be useful someday…but someday is here…and sadly, it’s not.
Oh my. You must be at the home place packing up? That’s a ton of work and so many decisions. Don’t know about you, but I’m finding that stuff isn’t all that important anymore. Maybe one thing that has strong memories…and a whole buncha poems? Take some photos of things before they go so you can write about them later?
Miss your regular poetry writing. Wished we were able to form some sort of writing group…say…that’s an idea, eh?