Moving Days

We moved this week from a home

Ours for fourteen years

Lived in longer than any

Of many others we inhabited

We disposed of certain relics

Keeping those with meaning

In a different, clearer space

They feel treasured anew

We will miss the garden

That cascades down a slope

The view of mountain and lake

The special sense of place

Miss, too, the sense of people

At gatherings large and small

Some part of them remains there

As do many parts of us.

We sleep in a new bed

And sleep is ineffably different

We wake to test our habits

Which remain? Which have changed?

We take strength from the rest

The things that cannot change

Love, companionship, knowledge

That we lean on one another

One home is past

Another unknown future

We have moved much these days

Yet less than those days moved us

Charles B. Neff

5/5/16