Knick-knacks

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, or

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 never go

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