Packing List

For me it is a cry, a wail, of pure unsatiated yearning.

So many years of moves 

and changes 

and towns.
Ever more moving boxes and new class rooms and faces.

All so wonderfully new at first, 

to learn and meet and explore. 

Only to leave behind again and mostly forget 

as a small bit of past.  

somewhere else, now no longer new.

No one stayed in my pocket or my conversations. 

They faded away. Just gone 

and papered over with aa new address.

So many years of places and small stories have flipped by 

and are now too deep in the deck. 

Too far gone. 

Just gone and replaced

when no one was packed up 

and labeled on my box

and sent along with me

to help me remember 

who they ever were.