In my Cupboard a Box
11th April 2022

In my cupboard there is a box,
It holds mementos from my childhood,
from my children’s childhoods,
small often immaterial things I have gathered on the way
through our lives.

They mark times,
places,
stages and milestones,
...people.

I put them there knowing obviously I would open this box someday,
to reflect on breadcrumbs that are important to me,
…tracing the paths of all that I hold close.

I can feel the time for opening that box drawing near,
only now I am not so sure,
I am asking myself if the opening of that box may mark the point of looking back rather than forward.

That point of decline toward the end.
I look for similar boxes in my parents cupboards without success.
They are busy fighting dementia and other declining health issues.
They have been looking back for some time now, and that time will soon draw to a close.

The pinprick connections that box contains, through time and place,
make me question my being,
make me question what my way out of this world may be.

Once just a collector, I have inadvertently become beholden to them, they exert an almost imperceptible, but debilitating influence on me.

Something larger is calling and I am not sure I am ready to answer it,
or if I ever will be…

From a road, to a field, and a moment, Sunda.

White is the colour of mourning in India. I had a moment with this guy in an excerpt from a bus trip. The traffic had been at a standstill for some time and so I went for a wander, to a field and two or three men sitting passing around a chillum. One of them (this guy), waved his hand across the dusty vista after I had been sitting with them for a bit and uttered Sunda (the Hindi word for beautiful). It was a peaceful immediate connection that stopped there, not needing anything more. I felt strongly he had an intrinsic understanding of the universe and life about us.