Sometimes you just gotta chuck it!

So I had my Yard Sale this morning in an effort to reduce the mountains of stuff one accumulates (or more correctly that two accumulate).   I was brutal, well brutal for me that is and the weather was reasonable as I sat out on the front of my house surrounded by paintings, bric-a-brac, chest of drawers, spice racks and rattan screen etc.etc. and did my knitting and hoped that now and again one of the speeding drivers would consider stopping and looking at my treasures ....  not too many takers but enough to say goodbye to the main body of things and Steve packed the others into his car and took them to the charity shop.   Oh well it's a start and I've got lots more to go at and I still have my sentimental suitcase when feeling blue ...  

The Sentimental Suitcase

Memories moulder away

Within your comfortable decrepitude

Rather as the garden compost

Where all good waste

Morphs its journey towards ripe

Earth-enriching goodness.

So the shabby suitcase,

Battered repository with broken lock, no key

Holds piquant memories.

A toddlers abstract artwork,

Attributed to “Kate aged 3, 1971”

And “Mummy” with purple hair

And wild yellow eyes,

By “Sian 4.1/2, 1972”

Both heavy with dry, cracked paint.

Aunts and uncles at christenings

Proud grandmas and granddads

New mums in mini-skirts

And dads with kipper-ties, smile out

With hippy hair and gaucho moustaches

From tiny Kodak-ed photos

Falling from their torn and gaudy

Boots the Chemists envelopes.

Hundreds of slippy-dark negatives

So much a thing of the past.

School reports and the still-silken locks

Of a child’s hair.

Yellowing newspaper cuttings

Relating births and deaths,

Crumbling wedding telegrams

Old love letters and a child’s

Precious poetry

All encapsulated within

The fragile grip.

And year on year it languishes,

Life’s luggage

Like some happy but deserted lover