Here is my elegy for the poetry contest. It has been a big challenge and lots of fun.

MEMORIES’ FOG
Suitcases packed, the boxes all stacked high
Moving van soon would arrive at the door.
Thirty years living now left in the fog file
of memories lived, now left on the shore

of oceans of happenings lived every day past:
front porch where families gathered at times,
back yard where children played even in darkness
windows where wind blew in music of chimes,

streets that we traveled in summer and winter,
parks where we walked and the kids had their fun,
snowstorms that meant new men in the yard’s snow
(they couldn’t hide so they’d melt in the sun).

So many memories filled up the fog file.
Never forgotten, they don’t disappear.
New ones replace and the old ones grow dim.
We’ll visit that fog file with smiles in our tears.