I’ve been shredding the past,
tax returns from ‘fifty-two,
letters to and from a cast
of characters I knew
in days now dim with age,
receipts and cancelled checks,
attempts to play the sage.  

Yellowed pages bow their necks
to the modern guillotine,
filling bag after bulging bag,
soon to be bleached clean,
recycled into pulpy slag.  

I’ve been shredding decades of blessings,
memories sweet, and bitter sorrows;
shredding to avert the guessings
of some guessers some tomorrow.

Jim Rapp taught history at Osseo-Fairchild High School from 1970 to 1996 and directed drama at Evangel Assembly of God Church in Eau Claire from 1998 to 2009. Or more about Jim go here.