Trafficking Conscious Crumbs

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

I cleaned out the pantry on Saturday,

it seemed like a good s time as any.

It was overflowing with discarded, open packets

of half-eaten crackers, empty peanut butter jars,

soft biscuits, moth infested flour and icing sugar packets,

spilt nuts, stale cereal and a

trillion crumbs.

There was even an oversize marrow, given by a well-intentioned neighbour...

rotting quietly on the pantry floor.

Twenty empty egg cartons spilling

Rogue plastic bags that had somehow seeped with my plastic bag-free home

A trillion crumbs . . .

scattered like ants . . .

leaving a trail of gritty mess.

A trillion crumbs

encroaching on my life

cluttering my brain to the point of standstill

‘can't move for the clutter . . . no room for new thoughts'

Saturday was the day,

jumbled thoughts

fighting for space.

It was a methodical process

shelf by shelf

kitchen floor soon covered with debris

all laid out in varying stages . . . each discarded open packet

telling its own story

One of those jobs

Halfway through I walked away

my mind was represented on the kitchen floor

was just too much

Discarded thoughts

taking up space

suffocating

in

stalemate.

Each opened packet, each empty jar

begging a story to be told . . .

of how they came to be opened, shared for a while then

discarded and left to become stale

fighting for space in an overcrowded pantry

cluttered with a myriad of personalities

and a trillion gritty crumbs wiped from shelves

now sticking to my bare feet

consciously moved from mind

yet still

relentless in their grip.

From shelf to floor

compost bin,

recycling bin,

trash sack

all overflowing with debris

And the trillion crumbs scattered all over the floor

Stuck relentlessly to my feet.