Your Photo Album Poem by Amrit Rathi

In your photo album, you always keep
memories of the happiest of times:
photo of playing on the beach,
photo of your birthday celebration,
pictures of your graduation ceremony,
wedding, and new house;
many shots of holidays and your foreign tours,
but none of your miserable moments.

Missing is any photo of you studying hard
late into the night for your exams;
or of lying in hospital bed terribly sick;
or of your divorce or an insult
by your grouchy boss
or hurt from an otherwise dear friend.

Yet there is another photo album
that we keep in our heads
called our memory.
In that album,
we include so often
so many negative photographs.

Many snapshots
of depressing arguments,
many pictures of the times
when you were so badly let down,
or of the occasions
where you were treated cruelly.

This is crazy!

Let's clean up
the photo album
in our head.
Delete the uninspiring memories.
Trash them.
They do not belong in this album.
In their place, put the same sort of memories
that you have in a real photo album.

Include a picture of the happiness
when you made up
with your partner,
when there was that unexpected moment
of real kindness,
or whenever the clouds parted
and the sun shone
with extraordinary beauty.

Keep those photos in your memory.
Then when you have
a few spare moments,
you'll find yourself turning
joyously its pages
with a smile,
or even sometimes
with hilarious laughter!