Divestiture

I have come
To a time
In my life
When the urge
To travel light
Outweighs my instinct
To accumulate.
I gaze in wonder
At all the junk
I collected
Over the years
And scratch my head
In puzzlement,
Wondering why
Most of it seemed
So important
When I bought it,
But now seems
So incredibly useless.
The things
I once coveted,
And couldn’t
Do without
Now lie there
Stuffed in boxes
And stashed in storage
Waiting for me
To sort them out.
It’s all debris
From bygone times,
Clothing I never wear,
Office supplies I’ll never use,
Furniture that I haven’t yet
Found a new home for,
Toys that the kids
Can’t seem to part with
(Evidence that this could be
A genetic plague!),
And junk I can’t get rid of.
So much work is needed
To sort them out,
Separating the good
From the bad,
And as time passes,
None of it appears
To have much value.
They all become encumbrances,
Things that I don’t need,
So it’s time for divestiture,
Time to eliminate anything
That doesn’t have
Some well defined
And immediate use.
It’s time to get down to
The essentials of life
So that I can travel
And be free.
Excess stuff
Just gets in the way
Of the life
I now intend to lead.