Knick-knacks
The
knick-knacks we pass on
may be
discarded, given away,
or
burned. No one but we
can
appreciate what they signify.
Sometimes
a year, more often just
a day we
were together where
we’d
never been and wanted
to
remember Bali or Japan
sailing up
the Yangtze, freezing
at the
tip of South America ’s
Tierra del Fuego: Fire Land.
The
artisans who carved or cast
these
knick-knacks may have been
grateful we
could appreciate
the work of
careful hands.
They had lives
to earn, much harder
than our
own. And so we brought
a piece of
them to far off Idaho
to rest on
a shelf and be dusted
off from
time to time, as we
remember traveling
together
through this
world abroad or home.
When we
pass on, we pass
these
knick-knacks to another
generation
who may nev
where
we have gone. Maybe
they’ll
remember who we were.
Maybe
they will know how much
we loved them
and each other
no matter
where we travelled,
no matter
what we brought home
to leave together
in an empty house
long after
we were gone.
—Donnell
Hunter
22 February 2012
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