There are never any covers in the cupboard for those plastic bowls,

one keeps the left overs in, to eat another time.

I’m told that they are in there but however hard I look for them,

they always seem to hide from me or change their plastic size.

 

Perhaps there is a an island fair, way out in the Pacific blue,

where all those lost and mislaid things go at vacation time.

And there, in heaps upon the shore in deck chairs or the burning sand,

they lie in wait to hear that we are searching for them here.

 

Glad they are, that though mundane, our lives are not complete at all

without their quiet services; though we seldom say Thank you, to

things that serve us every day like socks and shoes or plastic lids,

trowels, watches, keys and rings that we search for all the time.

 

So I promise not to scream, when things, are not where they should be.

For after all, they, just like me, sometimes need a holiday.

Instead I’ll see them in my mind; that blessed thing I cannot lose

because it’s firmly stuck to me in a most possessive way.

 

I’ll think of them upon the strand enjoying suds or warming sun.

And hope that they may send a card; showing them etcetera,

linked in endless dance between the sand dunes and the sea.

There on the back, in finest prose a message to us here alone.

 

“So glad that you are there.“

 
 

David Garlick, Victoria, October, 1994