Pickings

West of the hog house in a gully
pointed toward the creaking windmill,
lay the everyday history of my family —
discards over a century.

Broken crockery, tools replaced by new inventions,
even buggies and horse-drawn implements
overgrown with grass under trees nearby.
I spent hot afternoons handling the past.

When the future turns bleak —
the chain letter of endless expansion
runs out to impossible return —
We will be the dogs returning to vomit.

Cycled to the beginning for another pass,
a chance to sort through with new eyes
and old eyes,
to save, but even more, to release.

Nineteenth and twentieth centuries now
buried veins of ore in landfills,
but like a road map showing destinations
to the conscious eclectic.

11/30/00