I find solace in digging deep into my emotional junk drawer,

I sketch with words, nestling them together on the page,

I rummage through the contents and pull out a hodgepodge of memories,

Tickets to an Ike and Tina Turner concert,

Our wedding pictures,

The little rectangles of the boys from one picture day or another.

A deck of tattered cards brings visons of the wrinkled face of my beloved grandmother,

I want you to feel what I feel,

I want you to understand the nuance and the onion like layers of emotion.

And as we peal them together, you the reader and I the tale teller, the tears appear,

An image can conjure a thousand tears,

There will be tears of laughter as well as those from pulled heart strings

I have always been a wandering minstrel, I have always yearned to tell a story

Stories that elicit memories and move you from one emotional state to another

Like hopping on the chalk marked sidewalk of our youth

from one foot to two and back again

I used to write to and for my muse.

Now I write for strangers and through this march through time,

the telling of our stories and the new found journey we share,

we become familiar.