separating the future from the past,
deciding what still has value and worth.
Naturally, there are too many books,
too many sketchbooks still empty,
too much paper, paint, sundries.
This means a lot of time spent shuffling
box to box, organizing and reorganizing
all the bits and pieces and paraphernalia,
hastily scribbled notes and plans:
lists of artists, lists of poets to read,
lists of websites to explore and bookmark,
names of people who wouldn’t remember me now.
There are years of notes from my devotionals,
in-depth studies of words and their meanings,
notes from webinars and conferences,
as my career took me from art gallery,
to museum, to archive, to historic site.
I have moved many of these boxes home to home
for over twenty years, some even thirty.
Every time I open one, even if it is to diminish it,
it is a treasure, a touchstone for a moment
I have somehow forgotten, a memorial
to the person I once was, and sometimes remember.
