Mingled Curse and Blessing (of what we forget and keep)

Take nothing for granted...hold then let go

and see what sticks!

That's becoming my middle-age mantra!

Sometimes the scenes I turn to touch and tenderly caress

Escape the reaches of thought’s fingers straining to retrieve

What once upon a time had thrilled the heart with happiness

Before it followed forerunners where each day takes its leave

To be tossed in a sieve that sifts both low blows and high fives

Where only fragments and frayed bits of Afterward survives

To compose much to our chagrin a sort of silhouette

Of mingled curse and blessing in the things that we forget

Sometimes the scenes that I would rather not recall at all

Seem so determined to take up permanent residence

Where I would rather tuck the fringes of a softer shawl

To edge away the lingering effects of consequence

But as wisdom deems fit, the blush and cringe of it persists

As a reminder to be kinder to those felled by fists

Where we are altogether tethered to the rise and fall

That mingles curse and blessing in the things that we recall

Sometimes the scenes that flit across the screen of Now and Here

Cause me to mull the caliber of Hull’s momentous pyre

Where push and pull is always full of what will disappear

Some lost and gone forever, some salvaged for thought’s memoir

To set within the frame of retrospect, a strange tableau

Of steppingstones, millstones and milestones, goodbye and hello

These empower the echoes that can make us laugh and weep

With mingled curse and blessing of what we forget and keep

© Janet Martin