I say goodbye to a doll
who wears a cotton dress
and a pine-green coat
her hair cut in one spot down to the roots,
my 8-year-old attempt at being a hairdresser.
I also wave farewell to a teddy bear
who I used hold in the night.
He once played music
but for some fifty years has been silent.
I see them disappearing into the distance
hand-in-hand like Pooh and Christopher Robin.
For years these toys have lived
the way memories do
shut inside a cabinet,
their presence unquestioned.
But one day I looked inside and saw
their journey was no longer with me.
I am not that girl
youngest of three
not the littlest one
the temper tantrum kid
the good girl
the mediator.
I’m also not the woman
without a child
but with a dog
the daughter
the sister
mate
athlete
writer.
All of these, and their memories
accompany the doll and bear
as they disappear down a country road
to embellish others’ lives.
This moment
I play naked
in the luminous poppy field
with my Beloved.
No memory but now
no identity but love.
OH Lesley,
Such beauty, the tears rolled…
Letting go …stepping into the now
the next step …reaching for His Hand…
thank you, much love.
So beautiful I cried. Thank you Leslie, you have Thee Voice!❤❤❤
Lesley…thank you for this lovely poem…so gentle…so powerful…so right on for me right now…
I just spent two weeks with my two sisters…we are all in our sixties…we all showed up as adult women this time…so amazing!
Thank you again, so beautiful and timely…for me…
Lesley……….that was an elegant assembly of words and thoughts…..tony
Beautiful! I read it with a warm feeling inside and a smile on my face. Thank you.
Lesley–
Beautiful poem. It evokes so many memories.
Just happens I am half way through a novel about memory. And a key symbolic image is a Poppy Field.
I would love when I am finished — a few months at least — for you to be one of my First Readers.
Would you care to meet for tea some afternoon and catch up? –bob
lovely contemplation satsang as I move further away from my identity and title of my previous employement, into the field of unemployment, dropping words like “we” and “our” to identify more with my true self.
Thank you all for your lovely comments. It is such an interesting process to let go of the old to usher in the new, so many doubts and second thoughts come into play. With these toys I wasn’t certain at all until they were gone from my house and then I knew the perfection. Such seems to be the case with the tougher partings, those old identities that I cling to, but the reward for letting them go is especially great.
This is beautiful Lesley, thank you. I love the image of the toys shut in a cabinet like memories, their presence unquestioned. That really resonates with me. Time for a spring clean, so freeing.
I so love the powerful image of fading away into love. Thank you dear soul.
You so easily capture my imagination and take me with you. This is sweet, nostalgic down to simple truth n the moment. Love this, Lesley. ?
Always so courageous in your sharing, Lesley. Your shut-away memories reminded me of a box in the attic with high school trophies and an athletic letter littered with brass pin images of basketballs, music notes, and other symbolic footprints that showed my tiny world that I wasn’t a nobody. Funny how the box’s presence annoys me, but I still don’t initiate its demise. I will echo Chloe’s comment that it’s probably time for some serious spring cleaning. I simply loved your poem. LOVED it! Thank you for sharing it.
Rudy, thank you for this lovely share. As I prepare my next book, I came across it. I wonder if you have visited that box. We do have so many reminders of what made us feel important in this often lonely world. Shedding them becomes a true blessing. Now you’ve inspired me to do more spring cleaning. 🙂