Poem for everyman

 

POEM FOR EVERYMAN

 

I will present you

parts

of

my

self

slowly.

If you are patient and. tender

I will open drawers that mostly stay closed

and bring out places and people and things

sounds and. smells, loves and frustrations, hopes and sadnesses,

bits and pieces of three decades of life

that have been grabbed off in chunks

and found lying in my hands.

They have eaten their way into my memory

carved their way into my

heart

altogether — you or I will never see them —they are me.

If you regard them lightly

deny that they are important

or worse, judge them,

I will quietly, slowly

begin to wrap them up,

in small pieces of velvet,

like worn silver and gold jewellery,

tuck them away

in a small wooden chest of drawers

 

 

 

and close.

 

 

John Wood, from “How do you feel?”

I was given this poem when I had three decades of life to look back on.  I now have well over seven.