I walk around their house as though traces of memories will creep out & overwhelm me. I walk tenderly. The dry grass from the drought is crushed by each step. A white plastic wastebasket lays on its side near the back door. The walk is covered in grassy weed debris. The hammock is rusted & torn. No one will sit in it mom had said, speaking for her past self, the self that would never truly relax.

What’s the formula

for disposing of the past

when no rituals

It’s what gets left behind that tears a family apart. Yes,  you can’t take it with you is one reason to not cling to material goods. The other is who is going to go through it when you’re gone? Perhaps it’s best if someone else is the filter, sells them at auction or takes them to Goodwill. To unravel the life of parents could take a lifetime, every item touched a memory re-lived, analyzed, deconstructed.

A stray tinfoil

lays crumpled covered with sprouts

from an old rose bush

I hear the roar of wind in the trees. It’s the kind of morning my mom would’ve hung clothes on the line to dry. Furniture is scattered on the front porch, wind chimes collide, books remain on shelves, souvenir bells wait on the mirrored shelf next to their 50th anniversary silver plate. Siblings have been broken apart. Family  photos with smiles from 50 years have been replaced by quibbling &  quarreling & questions of what goes to whom & why.  In the case of money, it’s easy. The  case for mementos, knickknacks & photographs, is more difficult.

the mantra let go

all the more important yet

unattainable.