13th March 2026

 

shelves stacked

with knick-knacks and object d'art

Garden wall.

© Rachel Green March 2026

Decluttering

How many books did I discard

when we Kondo'd that first time.

Was it eight years ago? Ten?

Probably a thousand, maybe two

and that's in addition to the thousands

I left behind when moving house

scraped up by the council men

and consigned to a landfill.

Now I have more again

and but none are replacements for those I lost.

Here are tomes of self-defence,

of the works of artists great and small,

and the words of other poets

on whose shoulders I stand.

I can part with none,

at least, not yet,

but all of my Bibles are digital.

© Rachel Green March 2026