Poem for an Estate Sale

On Saturday, I went to an estate sale. I was left somewhat depressed and distracted by a whole series of vague reflections on what happens to all of our stuff after we die. But I wasn't really able to come up with good or interesting thoughts that would be worth putting in the Heath Post (or anywhere, for that matter).

But then today, Kay Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems." I decided to look her up, and found a poem of hers that was reprinted in the New York Times a few years ago. It matched up very well with my mood after the estate sale, and underscored how lucky we all are to have artists who can take the vague notions that shimmer through our brains, and turn them into hard jewels of thought:


THINGS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space --
however small --
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.