Pile

The New Year verve leading to a totally clean desk has come to a sliding end.  Testament to this are slipping stacks of stuff scattered beside my computer and on the floor beside my filing cabinet.  Seriously, over the winter break after Christmas I went through and filed, trashed, or otherwise processed everything on my desk.  I was scrupulous!  It has only taken forty-four days for it to regrow!  And today, my friends, is the day I must again attack the pile. 

Dictionary.com offers the following entries for the noun pile.
1.  an assemblage of things laid or lying one upon the other:  a pile of papers; a pile of bricks.
2.  a large number, quantity, or amount of anything:  a pile of work.
3.  a heap of wood on which a dead body, a living person, or a sacrifice is burned; pyre.
4.  a lofty or large building or group of buildings:  the noble pile of Windsor Castle.
5.  a large accumulation of money:  They made a pile on Wall Street.

I hear the good advice, “Only touch each piece of paper once.”  I believe it.  I don’t know how it is possible.  I go through the mail every day and kids’ papers when they come home every week.  I trash a ton of stuff, truly.  Yet there is still a mound of things laid upon one another that need to be looked at later or kept for financial files or stashed for story ideas.  All valuable, right?

The devil over my left shoulder would love to scoop the entire stack and stuff it ceremoniously in the garbage while offering an evil laugh at such rebellion.  The angel on my right will not, however, let that happen.  That guardian reminds me that I put those papers and things in half-processed places because I valued something about them or found them essential for keeping.  The invisible convincing goes on to say that considering how much I do throw away, far more than I keep, there certainly must be value in that pile – stuff I believe I cannot do without.  This is a mental situation as much as a physical one.  Removal of accumulated stuff suggests a life-long task, perhaps one on which we might lay a few sacrifices to burn.

          Unfinished Business

          adding pages and papers, properly paid
          partnered with perused articles that might
          some night need to be reread, receipts
          for things one could need, valued as what
          to keep and file, responsible pile
          grows deep and festers finally
          fetid with old ink and printed text
          telling worth or thoughts from Oz.

          Well-meaning think must keep the heap
          that climbs and slides, often moved aside
          so people can eat at the family-time table
          where junk abides rising higher
          the stack remains, old book reviews
          carried, carted, divided, parted
          sorted eventually when it masses
          too large to carry, hide or ignore.