Spring Cleaning

 I have three thick leather photo albums, full of people enjoying their lives. They lived, clasped arms, stood next to each other breathing in and out, posing for the camera. 

And now, they are gone. I don’t even know their names. I suspect my mother, who I inherited them from, didn't know all of them. So what am I to do with them? Briefly I consider myself as one of them. I would not want to be shredded, destroyed, dumped into a garbage bag. Or would I think, my time is over. What does it matter?

Spring is showing her face. She is tiny tree buds, green sprinkling the forest floor. We are cycling again through the seasons.  I ask half despairing; what remains? Maybe like rock, we are in layers of time. Each layer enriched by the love contained in it and above and below it. Maybe our legacy isn’t permanence but our blooms. Our love given, our faces in joy. We are caught in a camera, remembered and then, forgotten. What remains is our now.