In my childhood we didn’t have
a lot of things,
and thriftiness was commonplace.
I learned to recycle and reuse—
bags, rubber bands, paper.
I sewed my clothes and hunted
for treasures at secondhand stores.
Now in our horn-of-plenty home,
I’m considered strange.
My children roll their eyes
when I propose
they take one paper towel
instead of three,
or heaven forbid
dry and reuse the one
or even the neglected dishcloth.
My phone is the gramma in our family.
Today my friend remarked,
How cute, your little phone.
My car is way over the mile mark
my husband says is time
to buy a new one,
but it’s comfortable like an old friend.
The worst is food gone bad
in the back of the frig.
Waste brings such guilt.
It breaks my thrifty heart.
—
Carolyn Chilton Casas lives on the central coast of California. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. Carolyn is a Reiki master and teacher who often explores ways of healing in her articles written for magazines in several countries. More of her work can be found on Facebook or Instagram and in her newest collection of poetry, Under the Same Sky.
