By Savithri Sundaram
Organization is the name of the game.
Got several cartons and gave them each a name-
To Keep, To Throw, and the third was To Donate.
Well begun is half-done. It certainly felt great.
Oh, it is going to be a piece of cake!
A few days or weeks, at best, it will take.
I am providing room for error, you know-
Better to err on the side of caution now.
I clear a shelf and lay the clothes on the bed.
No-it is too confusing. It plays havoc with my head.
Check them out as they hang from the hanger-
Keep, Throw, Donate. To decide will be easier by far.
The To Keep carton is by now alarmingly full.
As for the To Throw carton, it looks so woeful.
The To Donate carton-well, the less said, the better.
I will deal with it. Not right now, but later… a lot later.
By now, a few hours-they have passed.
The initial enthusiasm is wearing out fast.
And decision-making, oh God! it is so hard.
Everything, big or small-impossible to donate or discard.
Everything seems to have its own story to tell,
And I need to encase my heart in a hard shell.
This exercise in decluttering is now a mockery-
Whether it is with clothes, objects d'art, or crockery.
And I realize now how foolish I was to think
That a lifetime worth of memories, in a blink,
I'd be ready to get rid of. And that all it would take
Were a few cartons. I forgot all about the heartache.