I leave my house
With no backward glance
It was time to go
Time to downsize
Others call it
For me it is letting
Go
Of things of rooms
No longer needed
I take the memory
Of its sheltering
With me
The memory
Of those I love
Around my table
On the sofa
The fireplace ablaze
On winter days
I take pictures
Gathered over years
And store them in my
Mind
Of my children of Mother
My father
Friends
Some now gone
Some still here
It doesn’t matter
Where I am
They live in my heart
Live in a memory
Of what was left behind
Yesterday
But is become fertile
Ground
For a new life evolving
Today
–Dedicated with love to Esta and Harvey Nelson, August 2014
Beautiful Wendy. Thank you, Sari xo
“Beginning” is another perfectly wonderful poem which is an example of Wendy’s gift of extraordinary perception that she translates into words which target our hearts. Wendy takes universal experiences and, through her poetry, so intimately personal, even a stranger would feel she knows them better than they know themselves.
I love the hope in this poem and also the acceptance of change.
I also like the form in which it was written. I feel as though I am with the narrator as she moves from room to room and memory to memory—the slow unwinding of the poem mirrors the unwinding of a life once lived.