When I lost my parents
(as in death, not in the grocery store)
I questioned the purpose
of their life's creative output:
    my mother's needlework;
    my father's woodworking;
    my mothers hand-written, stained recipe cards;
    my father's watercolor paintings of trees and barns,
        pinned to the cork board in his sun-bright, corner studio. 

The salt-water wash of grief
rinsed all meaning and joy
from the relics of their shared life.

"The value is not in the things,"
said a coworker to me, days later.
"The value is in the experience."

"The value is in the experience."

Note the present tense:
not, "The value was (for them) in the experience,"
but rather, "The value is (at his moment) in the experience."

And so I continue to write poems,
continue to take photographs,
fully aware that one day
a friend or relative
will look at this poetry and these pictures
and ask, as I did,
"What am I supposed to do with all of this?"

And here's my answer in advance:
"Feel free to toss it."

The value is, after all,
in the experience. 

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.