Thingummyjigs

some thingummyjigs are miraculously preserved
as if unwilling to be forgotten
then one day, they reappear out of the blue,
leaving you goggle-eyed with amazement
we have forgotten so many things
the older we get, the more we come to seem like a swamp
there, the beautiful and the ugly alike
live and breathe with an unthinkable life-force
in the deep, dark depths of its lowest levels
quite by chance you’ll hear a pop and a bubble
will rock this bleak and desolate landscape
for many years, this Zippo lighter had been missing
now it’s there on the table
as if merely to prove that it had never been lost
suddenly and directly, with no thought for cause and effect
I never went out of my way to search for it
but now a string of days surrounding it come to life
one by one
I flicked a good many times
to get it to flame: that way, I get a stronger sense
that the existence we share
is not really that of a swamp—well, not entirely anyway

THINGUMMYJIGS