Remembering Uncle Simpsie

During my visits you rarely let me into
your silent, inner world that seemed drab.
So I never really knew you, until you were
just another leaf dangling from the family tree.

But when I came to collect your belongings
traces of that inner world emerged
that could not be swept away
by some custodian's broom.
 
Your books, scribbles, trinkets 
would not add up to much in dollars;
but in sentiment, your effects hid priceless treasures
whose cryptic meaning I try to decode:
 
Photo albums filled with pages torn from magazines
families staring, daring you to pretend they're yours
when your own family had scattered and dwindled, 
leaving you torn from the outer world.

But oh, the inner world you constructed 
out of boxes brimming with brochures
of exotic travel when you never left Brooklyn
and sci-fi novels that let your imagination soar. 

When the world wrote you off as bi-polar
and orderlies doled out meds to keep you orderly
you crawled into dreams however grandiose
that transformed the tragic into magic.