Of Postcards In Our Hearts...

 Something about Christmas probes Past's 'postcard heap'...

I like the postcards in our hearts we leaf through now and then 

After sharper edges and hurts have blurred beneath Time’s pen 

To leave behind a kind of surreal light-and-shadow-show 

Of pictures that the past has framed and filled with Afterglow 

From years soft-strewn beneath the moon like footprints in the snow 

After the weariness of work and wish-wars yields its grasp 

And tucks love’s tattered fragments behind Bygone’s soldered clasp 

It gathers moment-measure into treasured bits of art 

Like a postcard-collection that we carry in the heart 

Of life’s recounted blessings that have lost their sting and smart 

I do not want to stay too long in thought’s strange gallery 

To gaze at portraits not quite like the present used to be 

But now and then I like to run kind whispers softly through 

A sheaf of pictures echo-spun in sun-gold, twilight-blue 

To remind me that what I hold is postcard pigment too 

© Janet Martin