Saturday, October 11, 2014

FROZEN IN A MEMORY



DECORATE
I reached as high as could
and still wrap my fingertips across the edge.
I pulled and struggled and after a long fight
and much effort I finally made it.
I crawled a bit away
from the ledge I just crossed over.
Then as I lay slumped, fragile,
worn out, tired, lusterless.
I sneezed
and years’ worth of dust
flew off the others
who had made the journey before me.
Once the panting was over and the sweat dry,
I found a comfortable position
and locked myself in it.
It is not easy putting yourself on the shelf
but once there,
it is easy to become
a sometimes looked at dusty ornament
associated with a memory or two.

© M Durfee
10.11.2014

24 comments:

  1. But why put yourself on the shelf in the first place. I say let others do it, unless you want to keep all the control.

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    1. Yeah Cheryl that's me to T, control freak. I find it easier to nap out of the way of daily life's intrusions.

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  2. Powerful. Any nursing home in America has elements of this sad poem

    Love
    kj

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    1. That's why I will disinherit any child of mine who even mentions the word, if I am insane, take me to the woods and let me go. I'll be fine within 48 hours, especially if it's the mountains.

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  3. I should to that myself. Time to give up on the rat race and find a nice shelf to inhabit.

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    1. It is quieter up here on the shelf Charles, but my world has been pretty quiet lately anyway.

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  4. Is that like putting yourself out to pasture? I always thought it was more something done to you than something you had to strive for.

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    1. OH Alice i was put permanently out to pasture in 1999. This is more like trying to climb the electrified barbed wire fence with hooves.

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  5. Whoa. I'm with Alice that getting put on a shelf is usually something done to you by others. Although I rather like the shelf where I'm sitting at the moment...

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    1. ds sometimes it is a last act of futility to just get a different perspective, and when you get there and take the longer view of the behind and fore, well might as well just sit there until it all makes sense.

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  6. Dusty shelves, sounds like how my house might be in a few more months... :)

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    1. I would dust once and install a hippa air filtration system, but then it would be a hard climb down Jeff, to change the filters. Let the dust lay where it falls it makes it easier for the fingerprint technicians.

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  7. Looks like it was your choice ... looks like you wanna hide up there for a while ... that's not so bad ... only, don't fall off the shelf, eh?

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    1. Meowmomma yep, yep, yep, ok i'll try to not fall off.

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  8. not a fun place to be on the shelf...and that you choose to put yourself there...well that says something...perhaps there comes a time though that it becomes comfortable just to exist on and be seen on occassion....

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    1. Brian that is good description of how i have led my life for nearly the past 2 years now.

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  9. Seems that way after a full moon!

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    1. So this is my blood on the moon piece? I thought that was the one i wrote about hemorrhoids?

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  10. I just cleaned a bookshelf this afternoon and sneezed at all the dust ~ Not easy to be there on the shelf, an almost forgotten ornament ~ Perhaps you want to be forgotten this way, a faint memory somehow ~

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    1. Or remembered for what I was once Grace. I wouldn't mind being remembered for what I used to do instead of what I now do; which is little.

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  11. Sometimes it feels like the safest bet - out of reach, gathering dust, over-looked and neglected. Hopefully someone will not only notice you, but take you down, dust you off and tap into that awesome brain.

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    1. Talon, i see them coming at me with drills electrodes and wires and I am jumping off the shelf. No one needs tap into my brain, it could cause an extreme climatic event.

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  12. I'd think that we are put on a shelf more than we want to be. We become objects sooner than we wish and to more than we wanted to.

    Very nice piece.

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    1. Myriam, honestly? All of my children wouldn't understand this if they read it.

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So Walking Man I was thinking...