the ice bucket

I’d almost forgotten you exist, buried back there, you probably have not seen the sun in a decade, the house is quite empty now, quite quiet indeed, no kids feet running rambling, glasses clanging, wine corks thunking, seltzer gurgling, conversations rising sometimes hanging, sports on the TV, pictures of kinders, munching on crackers and platters and dips, how many years has it been, those family get togethers were so common back then, thinking back they feel like a monthly occurrence even though they certainly were not, and certain things were always there to please the crowd, the cloth napkins, certain dishes and certain glassware laid out, the fold up tables from down stairs set up to accommodate the flood of thirty or so relatives, the extra folding metal chairs, stored in the back of the hall closet, black marker marks on the bottoms as to not be confused with the extras brought in, what a fiasco that would be, to lose a chair to a relative you are most certainly to see again, at least for a few more gatherings in that same year, this all seems so distant now, almost blurry, fuzzy, looking down at you my old friend, a companion, a contemporary, a holdover, a memory trigger, from that time ago, your place of prominence on the table, brimming with fresh made ice from the fridge, gleaming silver tongs just under your lid, like a functional centerpiece you did reign, where did this all go, where did everything go, I guess, we all succumb to age, and change, and the accustomed customs wind up out by the curb for pickup, someday, maybe this day, maybe not, you cleverly survived by hiding in the back recess of a cabinet barely touched or ventured in, but for what? a surprise, or just a ticket to a time gone by, people gone by, time that has moved on beyond usefulness, I think I might put you back, at least for a while, and maybe every now and again, might I seek you out, to trigger fond memories of lives and holidays of a by gone day, when I need a smile, to remember not just youth, to remember everyone at that time, as they were with my eyes as I was… like a child running around in a forest of trees to which one day I would grow up to be…