Porch Song (for Jeannie too)

[Eva]

I'm sitting on the back porch of my life
tearing up checks that are 20 years old.
It's a modern habit, acquired in this shredder
doomsday identity theft era, and I abide.

The box came from my attic, and I am finally
getting to it after all these years:
Separation leads to divorce and somehow I have
to gird myself to clean out and sell the house.

Why do we save things?
The carton could have been chucked out years ago,
Deposited in the attic, it becomes a sly entrapper
for clumsy feet tripping over words and memories

There are more than checks in this conglomeration:
Here are the amusing letters from stepson at college,
and afterward, his trials and tribulations,
as they say, with women, life and disease.

Oh, how I was angry when he wasted that money,
but these letters are precious, personal, funny.
I will wrap them, and, yes, that report card too,
in manilla, and send them on.

And this colorful father's day "I love you forever" card
from my daughter, married now and with her own child.
I begin to toss, since we are not on speaking terms
au courant,
then I meekly place it in the "keepers" file.

How long will anything be kept?

The environmental mailings from best friend Spike,
along with his jokes and notes, that son-of-a-gun.
Spike the harbinger of bird diseases, river slum,
avoided me that year so I wouldn't know he was dying of lupus

And Fred, you hilarious poet, the hit of any bar,
We didnt speak for years, and when we contacted ,
you were painting too...and were gearing up
for your usual wild birthday party.

Before it happened, though, you popped up in bed...dead.
Your daughter Rhoda never forgot you,
She contacted me via e-mail, wanting photos
for a book she planned. Cancer killed that dream.

Letters and articles from exhibitions and shows,
My discoverer, the critic, now dead too:
I asked her once, "how is Brody? What's he up to?"
"Oh," she said, "he died in Phoenix,..Died last year."

This second box contains bundles of old torn song sheets
with loose, ripped leafs, just waiting to be trashed,
I examine the pages, for each tells a story:
Love the touch of the ragtime paper, the pictures on the front,

Never heard of most of these vaudeville singers,
or their songs of romance, faraway places, mother, lost loves.
All those lives, thoughts, emotions, laid bare
in a paper stew of illustrations, words, G-clefs

Dead, everybody dead. It's the same old song.
But here am I, alive and still scavenging,
still sighing, still singing the back porch blues,
as I tear up checks from my museum of life.

[Virginia]

Eva,
That was fantastic!!! It just goes to show that as we get "older" most of what we have left to tide us over is our memories. Things that when they happened may have taken on all the seriousness in the world, but now just beg for a gentle touch and a smile and an "oh, yes, I remember that!"
Thanks, for posting it!!!!!
Virginia

[Jeannie]

Like Viginia says as we get older all we have is our memories. I hope they are good ones ladies. I just have to post another song I was listening to for years. Hugs!

Love Jeannie

[Absaroka]

I liked that very much

Andrea