Poetry, Life

The Ring

What is its worth?

A ring, once precious far beyond its worth in sapphire and gold — a treasure of the heart — a gift of the soul, an emblem of a future never quite lived, snatched away in a moment —

darkness descended.

And the ring changed hands. From a queen to a seamstress. And then to her daughter. From a niece to a nephew and on and on.

Until the meaning was lost? What was its worth — tucked into the binding of a sixteenth-century prayer book?

Three hundred years later the ring found its way onto the finger of an antique dealer, who knew nothing of the love it had borne.

That history — it passed in a flash. Like leaves in a river, just floating past. You can grab them for an instant. But they don’t last.

The things which we cling to — do they really have value, a history, meaningful to anyone but us?

Should we let them slip through our fingers, unfettered?

Or is there an energy — an essence of a life which clings to these relics?

Could the woman who found it sense the tether to the past? Perhaps feel the moment that the ring was first slipped on?

I’d like to believe it is so.

But, as humans, we’ll never really know.

I recently read a book, Lady in Waiting, by Susan Meissner about a ring which was found, tucked away in the binding of a book, by an antique dealer. The storyline went back and forth between modern times and the distant past.

The section of the book which struck me the most was the very end, where the author relayed the passage of the ring from hand to hand in a chronology of time. It was so easy to see how the original intent of the giver of the ring (and the feelings of the recipient) were lost in the shadowed recesses of time.

It really made me look around at some of the things in my life which seem so important now. What are they really worth? And if someone in the distant future ends up holding one of my precious things in their hands, will they be able to feel any of my essence still resonating through it?

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.