NaPoWriMo #4

I've been looking forward to Easter, because it means four whole days of not going to work. What I still don't have, that I had before I was working fulltime, is great stretches of time when I'm in the house alone (or at least, alone except for one or two very quiet people). This weekend we have visitors. And we went over to my daughter's house for hot cross buns at lunchtime, and then everyone came back here for more hot cross buns for afternoon tea. Somehow I seem to have less poetry writing time than on those days when I know I have to get my daily poem posted before I leave for work in the morning.

The latest NaPoWriMo prompt at Poetry Thursday is "broken thread". This one has such obvious metaphorical connotations, that I wanted to see what else I can do with it. I came up with the following, that as far as I can see doesn't have a single metaphor anywhere. Everything is exactly what it is. Sometime, when I'm not pushing myself to produce a new poem every day, I'd like to push this one around some more and see if I can shape it into a rhyming (or almost rhyming) sonnet. I think it has that potential.

Broken Thread

Because he was born in poorer times, he saves
everything that can be mended. And because
he lives in richer times (time poor),
he hasn't mended any of it. A burnt-out
electric kettle, a toy truck with one wheel missing
(the children long since grown, and in no hurry
to produce children of their own). In the garden shed
lies timber, wire, electric plugs, old tins
of paint - one day he'll use these things
to fix something, he's sure of that. Meanwhile
in a chest in a corner of the spare room, there's more
- old letters tied with string, a child's shoe,
a necklace of pearls on a broken thread
less valued for what they are
than what once (long ago) they meant.