drmstream[writing]

Peb­bles

 

Every­thing, every­where, a memorial

seen from the cor­ner of my eye;

a puz­zle piece, a part of a

recon­struc­tion, a memory.

A mes­sage –

I am still here

with you, for you. Like a spy, I read

code left in a news­pa­per or flash­ing past on a com­puter monitor,

rec­og­niz­able only to me.

 

I carry a peb­ble in my pocket

worn smooth by the sea, warmed

from being close, look­ing for somewhere

to leave it for you; to leave

a sig­nal, a mes­sage of my own –

I am still here for you.

 

by Lydia Ondrusek

That mason jar in the pho­to­graph holds peb­bles and rocks and frag­ments of glass that I have found at dif­fer­ent stops along the path way of experience.

Don’t be fooled into think­ing that they are mem­o­ries.  They are the tal­is­mans of expe­ri­ence.  They have voices.  They know what they have seen.  They can say the things that my mind can’t fathom:  when I hold one, I lose words and am trans­ported into a time that is not-time, a mem­ory that is not-memory, an aware­ness that is not-aware.

I’m grate­ful to my Twit­ter friend @littlefluffycat for shar­ing her poem with me.  She knows the impor­tance of valu­ing tal­is­mans and she found words that hint at what we gain, even when we have expe­ri­enced loss.

Thanks for let­ting me share your poem here.