The death of a pack mule

 

We never forget,

Maybe we never forgive,

or get forgiven,

Be it hate or hate(s),

or love or love(s),

We carry their bittersweet,

poignant, tart, soothing, disturbing,

happy, sad, hopeful, depressive

imprint on our skin;

their stamp on our soul.

 

Some sudden dusty autumnal gust of wind

lays bare the moth-eaten, moldy

crumbling lid of the trunk of memories,

We open the lid

with gingerly fingers,

We want and don’t want,

but still we do,

And from the damp, stale air inside,

with closed eyes we have our rosy smell,--

that touch, that walk together,

that kiss for that someone,

or pangs of jealousy, hate, anger

for those who stabbed us in animosity.

 

We carry the past buried in us,

in our cremation ground,--

private and personal,

And we silently visit it

to exhume golden sunshine sometime

or swamps of darkness the other time,

And then on some fine or not so fine day,

we drop like a ripe leaf

and get buried in the same graveyard.