A new poem for a new year: Treasured Collections The things I have collected in my long and storied past— Dolls when I was little, Teacups and elephants and overstocked bookshelves— I see as reflection of my heart’s desire To collect friends and treasure them, Keep them and grow with them All my life long Christina was the doll I got for Christmas The year I turned ten She was as big as a real baby With golden hair and pudgy fingers and toes She lies today in the cradle that held my daughters Dressed in Elisabeth’s christening gown Snuggled in between Hosée and Léonie, my African children And the antique Dutch boy and the Hungarian bride These,my first friends, were but shadows of the real Characters who would inhabit my story: Catherine and Elisabeth, real flesh and blood Children, reality for whom my dolls were just a metaphor, Friends from many nations I grew up with Ellen, the Dutch girl, my friend in Switzerland, Emese, the Hungarian bride who married an African Robi and Dorothy, my Hungarian-African grandbabies So many precious friends collected, Treasured, and prized, though long left behind In Grandma’s basement while I moved on To yet another home in another city In a foreign country on a new continent A carved wooden elephant was the first souvenir I purchased myself, as a child in Africa Now I sit in my Africa room surrounded by elephants The largest one from India, given by my father-in-law Just before he died, Pink plastic one I played with as a baby in church If I open this one, there is a green rhinoceros inside And inside the rhino is a yellow buffalo And inside the buffalo is a pink fox And inside the fox is a yellow bunny This elephant is perhaps a metaphor for me My present self concealing all my past identities On my desk is my pride and joy: Porcelain elephant mama and child Who smile, each at the other, so tenderly These sat on my grandma’s television An infant memory is being lifted in Grandma’s arms To have a closer look at this elephant love Just by turning my head, I can count, here around me Forty-seven elephants I have collected and treasured Would that I could count as many friends In my dining room I have displayed behind glass My teacup collection, vivid mementos of treasured friends: Debbie, now in Nebraska, with whom I had high tea and played Scrabble all night long in a blizzard I have not seen Debbie in this millenium Catherine and Elisabeth, whose favorite birthday parties Always included wearing my dresses, white gloves, and hats To serve tea to their little friends I put teabags in their Christmas stockings this year Karen, in Budapest, who came home with us, often, after church, For a cup of tea and conversation And Tara, now in South Carolina Who I met over a teapot, when we looked up at each other and said, Simultaneously, “One lump or two?” In that moment I knew she would be a forever friend How many hours have we spent laughing over our memories Of childhood in sub-Saharan Africa How many nights have we cried together over too many losses, Too much unresolved grief, too, too many goodbyes I have not seen Tara in more than five years Yet still I cherish her as my true Friend Books on my bookshelf, a life-long collection Carried with me wherever I go, my imaginary friends I love to revisit them: Hercules and Miss Marple, Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, Laura Ingalls and Meg Murray, Frodo and Father Tim But they are mere analogies of the friends my heart longs for Friends I have known since I was a child Friends from every continent but Antarctica Friends I have not seen for far too many years I got a new book for Christmas I think I will read it today In anticipation of the friends I will come to love this New Year Friends yet unknown, not yet grown dear With whom, perhaps, I may grow old And never have to leave behind Friends with whom I need never say goodbye
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 19:39:55 +0000
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