 | The Sunday Poem: MolderingFebruary 18th, 2007 |
This is likely to be the oldest poem I ever post on this site — it dates back to March of 1989. Yes, it’s that most horrific of artifacts, a poem from high school. At least one person who reads the blog has commented that he of course “skips over the bad poems from high school” — perhaps there is some meager consolation in the fact that this particular high school poem in fact won an award — I think it was at the district level or something.
Anyway, I’m not so foolish as to present the original version; this is actually the slightly revised version, cleaned up a little bit the subsequent year, after winning. 
Moldering
In webs of sound, in webs of sense,
in faded yellow ribbons,
wrapped and attic-bound,
lonely, message-less,
mortified and mortal,
we found them:
when both people named are dead,
from Darling to Dearest
to Dearly Beloved we are gathered here today
to witness Dearly Departed.
And we had done without those letters for so long,
ignoring the rich faces of those
headstones in the valley
hiding under the house.
If we are our ancestors
then these letters are our life,
just as they used to be;
not as now, calligraphic spiders cold,
fading ink and crumbly,
dearly cared for in
our musty library, dusted
occasionally, or
reprimanded for
making love on the shelves.
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