Soul Souvenirs
There's a beach ball stuck in the rafters of the pool,
Its position unchanged
for the 7 years I've been coming here,
It contains air from the lungs of an unknown person,
an essence that rests here, though he left,
and most likely, never considered
that ball containing his breath again...
I wonder about all the places I've left pieces of me,
A lost soul searching for souvenirs,
A mere shadow drifting by,
here today, gone tomorrow,
Caught sight of, but unknown,
Known, but not seen,
There, but somehow pushed to the back of their mind,
Recalled gently, after many years,
Where my presence never left a place,
though I never returned...
Sometimes I encounter it with a long lost friend
who has a memory or an item I made,
a saying or a dance I embodied
that they kept somehow...
These are the people I'd like to ask -
Who was I in that moment of my life
when we brushed past each other?
What was I like back then?
I hope those fragments
are more than the air I breathed
on an unremembered day,
I hope those scraps of me
are the reason people stop for a moment
(like I do on occasion)
with a relic in their hands
to conjure back memories
Small links of the unforgotten,
That compose my being as someone,
who not merely existed, but is remembered...
...fondly with a smile.
Copyright © Joanna Daniel | Year Posted 2023
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