Things
 
“Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.”
                                                                                – John Ruskin

I look at all those photo albums
on the shelf in the living room,
nine feet off the ground.
Can’t even reach them.
Who wants to see pictures
of people from forty years back?
Who’s that? Who’s that? Where was this?
 
But I can’t get rid of them.
They’re valuable. Dusty memories.
What will my children do with these?
There’s an album of photos for both of them
from the years they were born.
A burden on them as well,
time leaning down on us all
from a shelf nine feet high.

J.C. Rammelkamp
 
If you have any thoughts on this poem, J.C. Rammelkamp would be pleased to hear them.