Filling the box

Fragments of thoughts

drifting around inside my head

like sections of newspaper

blowing and scattering and littering

the streets of an empty city

or a city still fast asleep,

not yet touched

by the morning workers

who collect the past

in their garbage trucks

to make things neat and clean

before the next wave

of paper and print.

Salvage some of those papers,

collect them in a wooden box

with a sailing ship

carved on the lid,

the box of hopes

and dreams and remembering,

the treasure chest of the mind,

a collection started and coveted

on the morning of our lives,

curated as time flows forward,

things discarded and then longed for,

things burned away with joy,

memories carefully wrapped

and stored in the bottom

of the box.

Fragments of dreams

- for thoughts and dreams

become one inside

the treasure box -

and fragments of hope

begin to fill up, until

we realize that the only way

to make room for these

drifting remnant pieces

is to throw away

the dirty strips of despair.

And so let us burn these away,

burn the oiled up papers

of our long-ago failures,

of our self-imposed inadequacy

until there is room again

to keep filling our box

of dreams and thoughts.