I am gathering back the pieces of me
swooping the net, catching butterflies
of fragments that I left behind

The lovelorn ice I sent to Siberia
I am taking it back to my tropics

The sadness slipped next to the chair
on your veranda the day you left
your back stooped and your gait slow

The smile I left in a parking lot
that I forgot to pack in my luggage
the one that has been glittering like a penny
on the tarmac, I have found it and put it in my pocket

The poem I wrote and crumpled and left under
the tree of my childhood, the crayoned words
in green and blue – it’s under my pillow now

The fabric of memory, the threads that held
the time we laughed until we cried
I have that patch on my quilt now, stained but loved

The dreams I sent up in air, I found them on a cloudy hill,
on a misty morning, when they were just close enough to
pull back into my garden where the shade of the trees
will keep the sun from burning them

I am gathering the bits of myself that I discarded across
the planet and throwing them up silently to the stars
the darkness and the light in perfect balance.

© Tanya Southey @Ordinary Poetry

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