Prologue

When you were young, shiny and new
Clamoring to be seen
To be picked up
Taken home/thrown into use
Your faces smeared with incandescent light
Your bulging shelves outstretched and eager In a bargain parade.

Working, coiling, grinding days
To construct the world that surrounds,
To enrich in labor, To be tossed aside Depleting novelty…
Discounted, resold, secondhanded, thrifted, gleaned,
shopped.

Use emptied you/emptied you into utility.
Silly magic words escape you
While the world through you was enriched...
Fading in newness
Fading in use,
Until finally abandoned---
Long-enduring permanent legacy to the land
though temporally ceased.