Souvenirs - a poem by Lewis Gardner

Sorting through boxes, I just found this poem, clipped from a New Yorker, faded ...

Souvenirs

Each time you move, do you ship
the same brown carton – photos,
birth certificates, term papers
that got A+, news clips
and letters, yearbooks and programs?
The newsprint crumbles,
the photos curl, the names
are forgotten. Year after year
it waits under dust in the attic
for a grandchild or biographer or a rainy afternoon
when all the items of the past
can be studied, sorted
and properly arranged.

Lewis Gardner