When my children were small, they made a rubber band ball. For years they gathered rubber bands from newspapers, the mail, and anywhere else they could find them, each one wrapped with such care into the growing ball. As they grew, so too did their project.

Until, one day, they were gone—moved away to start a life of their own. They left the ball behind, but I held on to it; it still rests on my bookshelf. Now, though, it is beginning to crumble with age, and it hurts my heart to watch it slowly fall apart.

You probably know by now, that a poem will spill out of me when tender, bittersweet moments like this rise up from memory and catch the light again. This is a senryu poem (shaped like a haiku, yet turned toward everyday moments rather than nature or seasons as a haiku requires).

I snapped a photo to preserve it, holding back its fading for just a moment longer…

fading, falling strands

a thousand small yesterdays,

too precious to toss

—©2026 Danna Smith at poetrypop.com. All rights reserved.

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