Downsizing
a double sword
this clearing out
of odds and ends
the library diminishing
book by book
so many memories
slipped between the covers
dust-bound now
yet springing so quickly
back to life
sorrowful not sweet
these multiple partings
from people I will never see again
save in my dreams
I think of book burnings
so many heroes
going up in flames
fire their beginnings
fire their ends
fire the means of forging
the Omega and Alpha
of the book world
that surrounds us
fire encircling us
death’s bone fires
consuming us
outside and in
rogermoorepoet 
Very poignant treatment of a subject that will engulf us all. I go into my den, look up at its very full shelves and turn around and leave. Someday I will steel myself to the choices I will have to make, but not today.
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I know the feeling, Jane. We packed seven more boxes of books today. However, if we do want to downsize and move … sad, but inevitable.
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Roger, I identify, as I cleared out all of my professional papers (bar a few) some years ago. I realized I would probably never refer to them again. The books are next. Typo, ‘gong’
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Thanks, John. Another seven boxes filled and waiting by the door. I guess we’ll soon have a dozen, then we can call them up again. So much to be moved away and forgotten.
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I love this. My grandfather turns 95 tomorrow, and my grandmother just turned 91. Six or seven years ago, my grandfather told me that he and my grandmother had “no couples friends left”; then a year later, my grandmother’s last friend passed – downsizing at its worst. At the same time, the younger generations of family keep multiplying, so they don’t complain. This poem captures what he was trying to tell me, beautifully.
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Thank you, Tanya. We have shifted out so many things. Currently we are packing our library and donating it to the provincial university (the University of New Brunswick). We have so far sent them 18 boxes of books and will have another dozen or so ready at the end of today. Even 30 boxes scarcely scratch the surface of what we have and the shelves never seem to empty. Mind you, many were stacked two and three deep. It is a strange time … so many old friends being ushered out the door. And so touching what you wrote about your gran and grampy. Blessings.
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Same to you, Roger! I am proud of you for making those donations.
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