Ashes

This poem is somewhat ambiguous, but I hope not so much that it can't be understood. The idea is that we sometimes like holding onto the past for its pleasant memories, even if we only choose to remember the good in them when, in fact, some of our experiences were also unpleasant; and the poem also communicates that we like to hold onto the present for its familiarity, even if change would be better. I suppose the poem is somewhat darker than those I normally submit, but I also offer in its end that hope is a powerful impetus for change, even if we don't always know exactly what that future holds. In any case, here is the poem.

Nostalgia is a polished oak table
The dust swept under doors
Closed long ago to shut away

Unseen are the nicks
Felt then as lost pets and disappointed mothers
Memories instead lit to gleam in color
When grey was at times the only light
And the only clarity a glass left empty

Memories fond in their backward appeal to innocence
Are called on to rivet in the boredom
To placate in the pain
To stoke the fires of hope

It is this blaze
That levels present and past
And lights one’s future to reveal a table
Oak and fragrant with polish
The nicks unseen
By eyes half shut against the light
For hope drives a bargain
That trades good for bad
Only by loss of the familiar
The ashes of past and present both
To be swept away for something more beautiful
Even if it is unknown