Broken croquet mallet,
spider-webbed, smothered in ancient dust,
grimy to the touch.
Great-aunt Belle’s favorite doll,
its left arm mysteriously AWOL.
Cousin Will’s six-gun, walnut-grain
plastic molded grip
cracked and splintered.
Allen wrenches and pipe-sockets
covered with raggedy newsprint
from five decades past,
yellowed, chewed through by mice
industrious creatures engineering
downy nests layered
with the headlines of the day —
Alderman Convicted of Embezzlement.
St. Ignatius Fundraiser a Grand Success.
Help Wanted: Detasslers and Bean Walkers. Good Money!
A Sawyer's Daughter 
You have opened a treasure-trove of memories with this poem, Julie. Somewhere in the house i have a 1929 (-27?) Dodge Brothers calendar that was hanging in my Grandparents basement in Ohio. It was about 30 years old when I found it and asked for permission to keep it. I remember that each month had a photo of a Dodge vehicle somewhere in the world, including a trip thru Mongolia and atop the Great Wall of China. Try to do that in today’s chaotic times! Thanks for re-igniting the flames of my youth.
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Glad you liked it Allan. The property where I grew up held the old country schoolhouse my father attended as a boy. Maddening to this day to think about how my parents saved none of the desks, maps or textbooks. No idea what happened to them. I think Mom & Dad just considered it all junk. Argh!!
One person’s junk, another person’s treasures. That’s not very reassuring but it does remind us about changing times, tastes, and traditions—dammit.
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🙂