faith hope love for $7

Posted on April 21, 2018

#NationalPoetryMonth

I started April writing several poems, partly because it’s fun to write poetry, partly because I’ve been all about doing projects of all sorts in order to keep myself from working every waking hour (or feeling guilty about not working every waking hour).

I painted a china cabinet. I’ve continued to have fun with my Irish tin whistle (that phrasing sounds inappropriate, but I’m talking about playing the instrument….okay, that still sounds inappropriate, so I’m just gonna let it go). I’ve done some workouts available on OnDemand. I visited some colleges with my favorite daughter (I only have one daughter, and she’s my favorite), and I worked on some mega spreadsheets to help her make a decision about where to enroll. I’ve done some reading.

And I wrote poems at the start of April, which is National Poetry Month.

Not bad.

This morning, I was hanging out on social media, and suddenly I didn’t need to look for a poem because a poem found me. Or at least the inspiration for a poem. We will see what happens. Here goes.

faith hope love for $7

—clearly the best deal available at the Putnam Yard Sale.
You’re imagining knick knacks and tchotchkes
in unceremonious rows and piles on cheap folding tables
while browsers scan for treasures and see only junk,
sometimes saying a cheery hello to the sellers in their suburban driveways
but mostly shifting eyes away, ashamed to see the sad spoils of a household,
ashamed at all that ends up relegated to the sales table,
ashamed if they want the leftovers Susan has affixed a fluorescent stickered price to
and embarrassed for Susan if they see nothing of value
at all.

You’re hoping for a meet cute, for two hands reaching for the ceramic frog at once.
You hope that the relentless pursuit of treasure among yard sales of consumer waste
might be a symbol of faith and of hope and
might result in love
—the unexpected take-away as they each pitch in $3.50
for shared custody of the ceramic frog (originally priced at $10)
and it eventually sits on their mantle
and they tell the story to their grandchildren
and they don’t mind when little Bobby drops the frog and chips it, exposing its fragility.
After all, it was imperfect when they bought it, so many years ago,
together.

But my story is of a Facebook notification:
“Susan added 6 photos in Putnam Yard Sale.”
I click and scan the china place settings, imagine the dinnerware in my household.
I scroll down: toy box, dog cage, mattress, blazer.
This page is a veritable folding table
overflowing with household castaways,
The Island of Misfit Toys or Corduroy
hoping, always hoping, a little girl will take him home despite his missing button.
After the mini travel blow dryer and
before the huge estate sale
the poem arrives.
FAITH LOVE HOPE
$7
Susan has posted it, the same Susan with the 6 photos of china that drew me here.
I imagine it is her hand in the photo, holding the framed piece upright
on the quartz countertop
with dark kitchen chairs in the background.
In her ad she has switched the order of the words from the “art” she is selling.
She has transformed lowercase swirly script into capitalized block.
faith
hope
love
They appear on a heart stretched vertically to hold the words
offset by polka-dot backgrounds in complementary pinks and browns
and double matting.

It is the best deal of the day—
in whatever order, faith hope love for $7.

I predict no one will buy it
maybe because it’s in the wrong place and needs other hands to pick it up, to hold it,
to sense some value in it
—to at least see the potential in the frame and matting
that could hold something, someday, worth keeping