I still want to live as if every small thing mattered
all the time, even if I know nothing can be ours to keep.
~ Luisa A. Igloria
small things like purple ink in a squat bottle,
matching Piper fountain pen cradled in a
velvet-lined box with a white satin ribbon
to hold it in place, forty pages of designer paper
with prints of monarch butterflies,
pink peonies with mint green leaves,
a peacock, its tail unfurled, set against
a sheet of music, a sparrow on a doily,
hot air balloons about to kiss the Eiffel Tower
you’d think paper as precious as this
would carry the scent of jasmine or roses
but no, what it presents is more enduring
the gift of possibilities as it travels over
thickets of pine trees, rivers polluted with
single-use plastic, children playing hopscotch,
drunks stumbling home
believe in the humblest of things
they waken to dreams too