Remembered

Claudia McGill 5 Comments

Here is another of those two-sentence stories with poetry added. I’m thinking of them as “Minuscule” and quick to read.

Read the first Minuscule, the explanation of why I wrote it and got started on this idea, and search under the category Fiction/Poetry Combination for others in the series.

Remembered

The small bare tree, a dedicatory plaque at its base marking the life of a student of some years back, unknown to those of us here now and therefore nonexistent, stood in the small garden behind the library.

I watched as one dried brown leaf fluttered in the chill breeze, separating itself from the small drift where it had spent the winter and landing in a clump of daffodils just about to bloom; turning, I walked the few steps to the tree, and began to read the inscription on the marker.

Forgotten
and standing alone
until not.
Remembered
Our hands clasp, hold on, release
Never far apart.

(Shadorma 70)
2/28/18

ATC people and their hands 3-18 small

Artist trading card, 2018.

 

5 thoughts on “Remembered”

  1. This was a very poignant story for me to read as it brought back a specific memory. Years ago now, a teaching colleague of mine who was also a friend, died suddenly. My debate team had just won a monetary prize so we used the funds to purchase a tree in my friend’s memory and plant it on school grounds. By now there are no students and few teachers in that school who knew my friend but I like to think someone cares for the tree regardless and that it is thriving.

    • This poem was based on an actual tree at Arcadia University and I felt exactly as you did, it really struck me that the tree is still growing while the lives surrounding it have dispersed.

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