Buried

I was told once or twice in my teen years
About copies of chapbooks and local
Journals that must still survive somewhere,
Proof filed away with scribbles, notes and pages,
The private and the published words
Of a talented and tortured poet,
One young man immortalised and remembered
Among voices preserved in parchments,
Tales from a decade before my time,
The literary legacy of a waning century.

These days I try to gather the works
Of a bright emerging generation
And horde them, safe in a cardboard box,
Save that some might be forgotten,
The sort of stanzas that might not make it
To the library shelves and archives,
Treasures kept for rediscovery
In some unprophesied circumstance
And stored with my own written contributions
Whatever meagre value they may have.