My New Bookcases Will Arrive In A Week

I empty the old ones and find among deposits of fine dust, Layers of me at twenty, at twenty-five…

A copy of 100 Years of Solitude in French, A collection of science-fiction entrenched around copies of Voltaire.

Then notes in old travel books. Some souvenirs bought or found.

Cookbooks with recipes of curry, hamam meshwi, Grandmother’s lentil soup and Mum’s mujjadarah,

As I meander through them, I smile at my Present, knowing that it and the Future have a solid Past.

Lola Koundakjian 12/23/07

(this poem appeared in the Weekly’s annual booklet, December 2008)