Something Old Something New
 |
| Public Domain Archives |
Something Old, Something New
Something old—
my grandmother’s patience,
stitched into every hem she mended
and every mistake she called “practice.”
Something new—
my father’s smile today,
fresh as paint on a house he spent twenty years
building one paycheck at a time.
Something borrowed—
my mother’s courage.
I’ve been checking it out since birth,
renewing it whenever life’s due date arrived.
Something blue—
the tired shadows beneath their eyes,
earned honestly from late shifts, long drives,
and pretending not to worry.
And a sixpence in my shoe—
not luck. Luck’s a rumor.
This is bus fare, grocery money, overtime,
coupons clipped with surgical precision,
dreams deferred without filing a complaint.
The minister calls it a wedding.
I call it an invoice, finally paid.
Not by me—
by a family who spent years investing
in a future they might never see,
then showed up smiling for the dividend.
So here I stand,
rich in ways that never fit a bank account,
walking toward love
on the small change of their devotion.
---
Posted with those folks over at DVerse Poets Pub. They borrowed something blue, or something.
I would love to know what you thought about this piece.
Please consider leaving a comment.
What a joy to read! You took a Victorian rhyme and ran it through the wringer of life and made it far richer than it deserved. I like how you took each phrase and made it personal, meaningful, with each detail telling a life story of love, hope and self-sacrifice, a history behind the newlyweds at the altar.
ReplyDeleteI identified with your ‘Something Old, Something New’, Chris; the grandmother’s patience especially resonated with me, as did the familiar ‘tired shadows beneath their eyes’ and the lines about the sixpence.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful written 😊
ReplyDelete~ Maggie
Brilliant piece iIt’s gritty, tender, and fiercely loyal, anchoring the emotion in hard work and sacrifice 🙌
ReplyDelete