Minder

Care is a state in which something does matter – Rollo May

I didn’t know what to do with all my dad’s love
so, I minded it for him fully intending to give it back one day.
Thing is, that day never arrived, the time never seemed right
and things always got in the way but the love kept on showing up.
Instead, I started to think in terms of some kind of grand gesture
but every time I looked at those boxfuls of love it seemed
such an impossible thing to pull together.

He will pass before me, decades before—
barring accident, assault, ailment and act of God—
and I’ll have to do something with all the boxes then,
I don’t know, maybe rent a storage unit or something,
because certain things charity shops simply refuse to take,
like underwear or dentures and other people’s love.
I mean, I could just bin it all but that feels wrong.

Like tearing up old photos.

Jim Murdoch: Scot, gatophile, honorary woman, classical music aficionado, novelist and producer of half-to-three-quarter-(and-occasionally-actually-fully)-decent poems for over half a century.