We are Our Stories

There are people whose reputations
are trails of light across the sky.

I do not know them.

I am a pack rat. That is no trail of light
behind me. There are only scuff marks
left by the things I drag along.
That is about to change: I am certain
about it. Just this month . . . or rather
earlier this year . . . a while back . . .
I almost decided to throw something
away, but since it was not a Monday--when the trash man
comes by--I put the urge aside, congratulating myself on having
come to a new phase in my life.

I promised to become lean and spare.

But then I look around. There are stories everywhere!
There are the masks we bought from the couple who
had lived in West Africa for years. There are more pots
from Dean Schwarz than there are pictures of our kids.
There are glass urns, and old wooden dough troughs.
There are chairs from Tennessee and tables from a bakery
in Decorah that was closed for insanitation. We have
detrius from Mari's family and a ton of old tools.
A Chinese General guards our front door, beneath
a gong we bought somewhere in Washington State.
There are a thousand rusty nails rusted when the Fire
Department put out a peculiar fire while I was building
a boat, and there are more cups than coffee in Java.

There is an old door from a building in Mexico,

hanging unhinged on our wall, with an Olmec mask,

and something unhinged from a potter in California.

I would rather tell stories

than leave a stream of light.

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