A box of keepsakes Note with the gift of a jewelry box

A sprig of japonica, cut from jade. Three strands of gold braided on a ring. Our Irish country cottage, blue door swung wide -- tin trinket dangling on a thin gilt chain. A handful of keepsakes you scan like a quatrain, iambic heartbeats, set carefully in place. A memory chain, in the quiet evenings you touch them, recounting, and touch them again. These scant moments are worth the saving -- the startlings, both the singing and the ache. Keep them safe in this birchwood box for the both of us, for love's sake.