Occasionally a tale of childhood
turns up in the soil broken by spade
and hoe as we dig up ancient roots:
once a small hard rubber ball
that now rests on the top shelf
of my bookcase; once a tiny black
horse of hard plastic washed of earth
which stands on the kitchen window sill
with its head forever lowered, hoof slanted
and the tiny shoe that speak the history
of the girls who once lived in the house
we have now and, who, I like to think,
found solace in them after their mother died
hear the ball bounce against the wall
watch as a little tea set trimmed in blue
is set atop stacks of books, a cup
for each of them and one for her, too,
and I am reminded of pieces of my history
stored like pages from everlasting landscapes
and scattered across my time here and hereafter:
the green toy soldiers that were “my men,”
pieces from the plastic- covered couch
on which Betty and I sat in juvenile love
nearly sticking to it in the inferno of our first kiss,
all of the old containers tossed from the windows
of moving cars, or left on park benches, or in
apartments when someone left someone else
I want to believe that a lonely child
has found one of my toys and kept it
and imagined a history for it that will
become finally a part of my story
for someone else to tell
I think this as we pull more things
from the earth, plastic witnesses, we keep
some, discard others, fertilize the places
where they’d been and plant roses, tulips, irises.
Ted Thomas has published three chapbooks of his poetry, and is currently working on his first book length collection. He has conducted poetry writing workshops in prisons, colleges, hospitals, and a shelter for women. Mr. Thomas has edited several anthologies of poetry, and he has twice been poet-in-residence at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA. A former faculty member at Roxbury Community College and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, he lives with his wife, Sarah, in Pittsfield, MA.