Shoebox of Memory

A shoebox stuffed with paper.
Each paper holds a moment of life.
Each moment is now illuminated by a flickering taper -
A family, a portrait, a man and his wife.

Moments past and lives long gone,
Remain immortal in a casket smelling faintly of leather.
Though dead long ago all live on,
Through paper as fine as a feather.

These images are stiff and monochromatic,
Yet every detail makes them more alive.
They were old when first they saw my mother’s attic,
Their reality is more real than anything we could contrive.

Ancient photographs of family,
Shut in the shoebox of memory.


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