Saturday, July 3, 2021

Yesterday

Yesterday is the room
we’re not supposed to revisit, ever.
It is the shadow that the sun
has expunged forever with a new dawn.

But I am the child in the classroom
who must turn around when the teacher
is writing cursive on the old black slate.
Yesterday held treasure

that I must see again.
It was a wooden crate
by the granary at the edge of town,
the buffalo head nickel

worn from so many thumbs
and forefingers passing across its surface
to produce the magic of trade.
It was the hobo waving from the train,

a grizzled stranger who took the time
to turn his head and wink
at his own magic of disappearing
into a new world owned by steel rails.

This morning I must balance
the accounts receivable ledger.
I turn the page to yesterday’s transactions.
They are still speaking to my soul. 

~William Hammett

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