poem of the day

[llywela]

One of my volunteers in work sent this in for our newsletter. It's rather touching.

Strangers in a Box

Come look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen.
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, and serene.

I wish I knew the people;
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.

I wonder what their lives were like?
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where and when.
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to pass away?

Take time to save your stories.
Seize the opportunity when it knocks.
Or someday, you and yours
Could be the strangers in a box.

Anon.

Comments

[agentxpndble.livejournal.com]

That is *so wonderful*! Did your volunteer really want to be anon, or are you just trying to be delicate here in your journal...? I ask because I will be sharing this with people and putting it in my own genealogy scrapbooks and would like to attach a name if you can share it.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

Anon because I don't think the lady who gave it to me wrote it herself, and there was no name attached. It's rather lovely, though - definitely one to share :)

[rosie55.livejournal.com]

This would ring bells with any family historian, I think. It certainly does with me. And I also will be putting it in with my family history papers. Very simple but so right! Thank you for sharing this with us.

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

It's lovely, isn't it - definitely one that strikes a chord with anyone who's ever gone through old family photos and wondered who was who.

[jayres.livejournal.com]

That's lovely and very apt for me as I am tracing my Family Tree. My family seem to have kept very few photos from the past and some of those that we have got have unknown people on them. I am trying to change this for the future.
I have copied the poem to keep. :)

[llywela13.livejournal.com]

It's lovely, isn't it - I know we've got lots of old photos from one branch of the family, but very few from others. It can be fascinating, yet frustrating to look at those old photos, able to identify some of the people in them but not all.