Driftwood

You can not help yourself
when you come on a piece of driftwood.

You wonder.
Where it might have come from.
Where the journey has taken it.
How long it has drifted before landing here.
Whether it will rest here a while or
drift to its next destination with the rising tide.
How has the journey changed it.
and what might one make if it if
you brought it home.

About this poem.

I was talking to someone this morning about my father. How as a young man he loved antiques. But we were not anywhere close to wealthy.

Fortunately, a fine antique dealer befriended him when he was young, and he would save old, often broken antiques and sell them to my father cheap. My father was a whiz at restoration. I have seen him bring in a box of what looked like kindling wood into the house, and months later it was a glorious 18th Century grandfather clock.

So I grew up with the idea of restoration. Look around my house and you will find lots of furniture that I brought back from pretty rough circumstances. It’s what I do.

So this poem brings that thought into mind, and it could just as easily be about things as about people. It’s what I do. Heck, it’s what I have had to do for myself along the way.

Tom