Demented Santa Staggers On
The past is a bag we drag around
like some demented Santa’s sack.
It only gets heavier and harder.
New items are added everyday,
too lovely or terrible to abandon.
The old and new jumbled together:
a double-headed Cretan ax pendant,
gift from a long gone Muse;
scuffed Vietnam aviator’s wings;
faces of the dead, lost, vanished;
loves that somehow could never be;
homemade birthday cards from kids
now grown and gone on alone;
divorce papers smeared with sadness;
images of lovers without names.
trips that went nowhere or here.
All the burdens of lives lived
with only a minimum of regrets.
Bent beneath this daunting load,
we stagger on beneath its weight,
uncertain when we can lay it down,
knowing that that time will come
if only we carry on long enough.
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