not without sin

a sin to throw away anything

that might still have usefulness

child that i am of parents

who started married life together

early in the Great Depression 

Mom left cupboard after cupboard

of washed, capped jars as i have one such low kitchen cabinet stocked

with glass containers ready 

for second, third or tenth use

magazine envelopes yield large scraps

of paper for shopping lists or cut down

to 3 x 5 for index cards

rubber bands securing asparagus

are wound around a plastic tube on

my desk, some waiting their next duty

until old age robs them of elasticity so

they quietly snap at touch lying

in useless line where their lifework had been the ability to encircle and hold

together as mine was to continue

saving and building until i, too

lie down, unable any longer

to gather scraps or to mend the broken bits the world has handed me

or to enfold and protect those i love

until they can grow and flourish

waste not

my parents’ early secret marriage gouged by the Great Depression

what they’d worked years to accomplish

wiped away as promised positions

disintegrated in industrial collapse

nursing posts unavailable

to married women

everything that could be was re-used, repaired, given new life

as money simply was not

within grasp of hand

raised as i was in their hard-earned

philosophy, i eat everything on my plate

and take home scraps in a ‘doggy bag’

wasting good food was sin-like

so, much of the fried ice cream left on

the restaurant table after our celebration

was painful for me to see, but, thank

the lord, not for my family who still

believe in abundance