RELICS OF DAYS GONE BY

by Emily Black


We go to estate sales in our neighborhood
not so much to buy things, but to see how
people lived in these stately old homes.

At a three-story hilltop home overlooking
the Tennessee river, we soaked up lavish
remnants of days gone by.

Children’s dolls, old wooden toys, holiday
decorations, and many fascinating items
in the kitchen and butler’s pantry

held us in a spell of nostalgia. I did buy
a few things: some antique Christmas
tree ornaments to go with my collection

that includes some from my childhood,
an antique hand-powered eggbeater,
and a small, oval covered dish, a nice

hand-painted China dish with life-like
parsley sprays in a verdant green color.
We’d never met the couple who’d owned

this house, nor their children or grandkids,
but at Christmas when we decorate our
tree, I think of them and their lovely,

lived-in home. I use the parsley dish often
and feel blessed to have a touch of their lives
mingled with ours.

They are gone now, but live on in their family
and in the hearts of strangers who relish artifacts
of their lives so well lived.


* * * * *

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida, enjoyed a long engineering career. She began writing poetry recently and is published in numerous journals. Her first poetry book, The Lemon Light of Morning, was published by Bambaz press in 2022 and her second poetry book, We Feed Dragons to the Moon, by the same publisher in March 2024. Emily wears Fire Engine Red Lipstick.