This poem is dedicated to SUSAN MESSMER, who gifted me with the title of the poem and encouraged me to write it!

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The rug lay still upon the floor

No one could ask for more

Years and years it drank up the spill

Family and friends wishing it no ill

Once beautiful and soft

Now an occasional deadbeat moth

Remnants of candyland dotted its frills

Kool-aid and pop that Sara spilled

Artist tints of color that Lara shared

Annie and her fingernail polish with such care

Elliott’s cigarette ashes laying bare

Adorned with their Dad’s long silver hair

Baby Formula from all three

Grandkids next contributed free

Juice, cereal and gummy bears

All so wonderfully, joyfully shared

Coffee from Momma and Poppa did fall

How about that carpenter’s glue on top of it all?

Think of all the footsteps that this rug endured

Absorption of conversation assured

Grandparents, sisters and brothers, and friends

Twenty-five years this rug did lend

All this exuberant life and more

All absorbed by this carpet on the floor