What would it be like
To not be weighed down
With the detritus and memories
Of decades and generations ?
Hats and shoes and awards
Artwork and photos and earrings
Scarves and letters and books?
What if I just traveled like a turtle
With my home on my back
And everything I needed
In front of me?
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
Hush.
It’s alright now.
That was just the last echo
from a past that was healed
long ago. It can’t touch you
or hurt you anymore.
The past brought you
to where you are now.
Be grateful for it.
And let the last echo
bounce harmlessly off the wall
and fade to nothing.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Sitting in the shade of
my parents’ dogwood trees
I go back in time thirty years –
and remember sitting
under these same trees
with a glass of lemonade
and Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave.
And now I’m there again –
in the body of the me I was –
young and with my whole future
ahead of me –
unaware of what waits
for me in the years ahead.
I look to the left
and two young men enter the scene,
laughing, and tossing a football
back and forth between them –
and I recognize my grown sons – my future
has entered my past.
Cosmic!
accidental picture of dogwood trees by Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 