Notice

This is an archived page from the original website for Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature. It appears solely in its original formatting. The accompanying rights and privileges pertaining to published content between March 2007 and September 2019 (Volume 1, Issue 1 through Volume 13, Issue 3) apply to this page. For current Wordgathering content, guidelines, rights and privileges, and further information, please visit the Wordgathering site hosted by Syracuse University.

Lynda Lambert

TO THE CURATOR OF SMALL THINGS

Listen to the audio version read by Melissa Cotter.

Dear Curator of Small Things,
This letter is to tell you
I am delighted with your museum
I have so much to learn.

First impressions are important
there is no redemption for
late arrivals in this world.

You spend your life searching, archiving
collections of small perceptions–
"This is so magical," I exclaimed.

Personal, private, sacred things
garnered from your travels
a world of syllables and found objects.

I admit –I was afraid because
you spoke of world views –
philosophy, Zeitgeist, ancestors.

Even the small powder room holds shelves
of pewter wares from Germany
Greek icons and leather masks.

All are objects of constellated time
memories in forgotten packages–
adrift in the Grand Canal.

My traveling companion from California
told jokes to young girls in Rome but
seldom leaves her home any longer.

In the sunshine if her back yard
she watches the pond
for Koi that birds have taken away.

The reading room in your museum
is painted with 3 shades of yellow and
Caribbean blue display shelves hold

hand–carved Santos from Puerto Rico,
three wise men on horses, saints, angels, a nun–
the Black Madonna and her baby on a throne.

Zuni fetishes rest forever on glass shelves
locked inside the antique glass case
in the niche – surrounded by terra cotta pottery.

Now, can I tell you of my feelings?
I stand transfixed by the small things
and how I want to step outside of time.

Today, I write this letter
to the Curator of Small Things.
Turquoise, feathers and black onyx.

I want to linger
in this poem, arranged with the precision
of a Vivaldi concert on a summer evening.

 

Lynda Lambert is the author of Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage (Kota Press, 2003). Her newest collection of essays and poems is Walking by Inner Vision: Stories & Poems (DLDBooks, Denver Colorado, 2017). Lambert is a retired professor of fine arts and humanities. She is an actively exhibiting visual artist – mixed-media fiber art. And, writes full time at her home in a small village in western Pennsylvania.