Ephemera - Dec 28 2024

 

Ephemera

Dec 28 2024

My mother’s treasure trove

of old birthday cards,

kindergarten art

made of dried macaroni

and white crafting glue,

and a set of report cards

  —  complete, except for 7th grade

which never made it home.

Not to mention school projects

that were graded, at best

a generous B.

She kept all this

for posterity.

For her future laureate

Olympian

celebrity.

For the biographer

who will confer immortality,

the museum

that will bear my name.

As if she had appointed herself

the custodian

of my storied past.

Or perhaps

it was simple sentimentality,

a proud parent

who knows how ephemeral

memory can be.

Or was she a pack-rat

collector

completist

who couldn’t let anything go?

We found it

in an unmarked box

at the back of a closet

on a high dusty shelf.

After she was gone.

After the will had been read,

the valuables divvied-up,

and the old clothes

that still smelled of her

sent to Goodwill.

So this is posterity, I thought,

a mouldering box

no one wants

not even me.

Yet it’s hard to discard the past.

To disrespect her memory

by tossing it in the dumpster

with the household trash.

To be sure

it won’t someday come in handy;

as if, at this late date

fame was in my future

or anyone would care.

Because posterity

is reserved for the few,

the privileged

accomplished

historical.

While the rest of us muddle through

moment to moment

until our time is up.

And then, we should know enough

to exit with grace,

accepting that memories

last a single generation, at best

before they also die.

No reason

to leave mementos

no one can place.

To burden descendants

with meaningless ephemera

they haven’t any room for,

sentimental odds-and-ends

gathering dust

until enough time has finally passed

  —  however much that is.

Like the white glue

that's gotten brittle with age

yet smells to you like fresh,

that heavy cloying scent

you can almost taste.

Old report cards

that give off vinegar and musk,

like paging through

the decomposing paper

of vintage books.

And birthday cards from kids.

With LOVE

in crayon

in capital letters

printed in red,

and a carefully drawn signature

from when you first learned to write;

so much better

than the illegible scrawl

it’s now become.

In writing this, I discovered there's a name for that: the musky vinegary smell of old acid paper – the unmistakable smell of a store that sells used books – is called “bibliosmia”.