Appraisal

“No one will want this.”

Miss Greyhair with the pinched face

Announced as she placed a check mark

On her crumpled paper.

“But it’s old,” I say.

Dismayed that the faded

Grandfather clock did not get

The admiration it deserved.

Two hundred years of duty.

Traveled across oceans.

Delighted children with it’s

Lovely chime.

Two hundred years of respect

And love.

“Sell it for parts maybe,”

Miss Greyhair shrugged.

What did she care for

The six-year-old who dreamed

Of owning it one day.

The child who knew its history.

“Even the china here,”

The woman droned on

Already bored with the clock,

“Is pretty but useless in

A modern world.”

But how wrong she is.

The clock is priceless.

Without a price.

The clock contains millions

Of moments in time.

Time that can’t be

Snatched back.

Time that moves only forward.

Perhaps I have become

Too old, too.

For the modern world

That moves at the speed

Of light.

A world of digital numbers

And pixels.

A world that shrugs

At the past

And laughs at

Sentimentality.

The modern world

That is full of fast food,

Fast cars, Fast internet speed.

Microwave a meal in a minute.

Send a message in a second.

Watches that talk

And track your steps.

A modern world

With no room for the

Softer, slower more elegant

Ways of the past.

Unless…

I say, no – wait.

This does have value.

Because it exists.

Because I love it.

And I love the ones

Before me who loved it.

Value comes from us.

What we treasure.

What we admire.

Value comes from a deeper place

Than money and things.

Value can only be measured

By our capacity for love.