Last Leaf
I’m losing all my scruples, in fact, it’s true. I sold
my gram’s old cornucopia, so lovely and so old.
If this is a measurement of how I’ve come to scorn
all those family heirlooms to which I have been born,
I guess I must admit you’re right. Something inside of me
has made me forsake memories of the family tree.
Too many leaves have fallen. That tree is stripped and bare,
and those family treasures all show such signs of wear
that seeing them depresses me, thinking of all the hands
that they have been passed down from, and all the foreign lands
they have been transported through to make their way to me—
the single stubborn leaf that clings persistently
to the branch they all were part of before their final fall,
so now I am the final remnant of them all.
That’s why I’m selling all the things that bind me to their line,
refining my possessions down to what’s just mine,
shedding off my past in a selling spree frenetic,
thinking if I rid myself of all those ties genetic,
that perhaps the past that draws me will lose its hold on me
and that giving up what joins us will finally set me free.
Then I’ll flutter here forever, almost weightless on my branch,
hopeful that this freedom of possessions is a chance
to become immortal, unencumbered by the vast
downward force of gravity that pulls me from the past.
Today’s prompts are scruple, sold, measurement, cornucopia. I‘ve been waking up earlier and earlier with the result being that some of the prompts are not yet posted, so one of these prompts is a prompt I missed earlier in the week for the same reason and another prompt seems to have stopped posting, so I am minus one prompt. if anyone reading this knows of a different prompt site, I’m looking for another one. Ones I’ve been using are Ragtag Daily Prompt, Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, The Daily Spur, Word of the Day Challenge and Your Daily Word.
Great use of all the words 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
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This is actually exactly what I’m doing. I’m jazzed about having a paper shredder and confused that I would be. Your poetry is amazing.
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