Personal Possessions (Poetry)

No one will love these things the way
that I have loved them.
When I am gone, I’m sure they will be lost
as children separated are
split and sent away to other homes
or those deemed less attractive
left without a welcome place to be
and fall to scavengers — their fate
heaped careless in the cold
picked over — grabbed for free.

Few valuable — no worth except to me —
aesthetic — sentimental — not much more
than markers in a life — the spoils
of comfort-seeking war against the years
mere mementos — souvenirs
all bound to lose their old connections
once bundled down the grey-dirt road
into junked obscurity
and of the few that some kind soul might save
they’ll soon forget what provenance was named.

It seems, late on in life, I should forgo
the impulse to adopt a further few —
take in to crowded rooms and make more space
for things that still remind me of a time
the future stretched unlimited ...
No brooding fear of what might yet befall
these goods I’ve gathered, casually classed
as my belongings — personally amassed
and dear — possessions common sense knows well
                                I cannot take
along on that last journey all must make.