Archives (Poem)

I wanted to post this blog yesterday, but never got the chance until now. While gathering stuff for Saturday morning's yard sale, something I wrote many years ago came to mind. When I was tasked with organizing 75 years of archival items for a nursing home's anniversary celebration, I wrote the following poem:

Archives

When all the tomorrows
Become the yesterdays,
The shared laughter
Of long, long ago
Has become tears of loss,
And then faded away
To the dusty nothingness
Of the archives.

Photographs, files, notes
That were put aside
To make more room for
The coming todays,
That became yesterdays.
Now, they sit together
In the dusty nothingness
Of the archives.

One far-of, future day,
Someone will question
Of where, when and how
It all came to be.
They will open the door
And ask the residents
Of the dusty nothingness
Of the archives.

Treasured clutter of the past.
Memories that last.
Archives

-ESA