Breath Of Life Poem by Patti Masterman

Are there ghostly feet still on the treadles
Of old sewing machines, or ghostly hands
Still setting down the Victrola's needle?

We come and go so completely from this life;
One minute there are birthday presents and
calendar notations, and the next all that's left
are some things.

None of it remembers who we were
or can tell a thing about us,
save by the evidence we left imprinted on the objects
or in the world.

And even that cloaked by a terrible anonymity,
That can scarcely reveal even our sex, age, or habits-
Even the bone itself becomes loam,

Which turns into sand, and there is no more
testimony past death,
so perhaps it is better that everything gets said now,
while you still have the breath of life in you,
to say it.