The Time Capsule

During your youthful years, did you ever participate in burying a time capsule, perhaps as a part of a school project? Maybe you created your own treasury of keepsakes planting it under a rock or mound of earth in your own backyard. As we age, memory often grows dim shedding little light on happenings of the past. There are those which remain engrained in the scrapbook of the mind much like indelible ink on parchment paper, while others vanish as quick as the blink of an eye.

The time capsule can be personal, depict culture variances, offer insight into tradition, provide knowledge of historical events, births and deaths and so on. Whatever its reason, it is a step back in time preserved until time for its resurrection...

Keepsakes and collectibles provide a tangible means of looking into the past. Historic caches of memorabilia contain a variety of objects each with its own message about the life and times of long, long ago.

A storehouse for all posterity
Representative of life at a set time
The time capsule relates to the dead
Allowing the living to explore mankind

 

Music, movies, toys, clothing and more
Depict the culture of a given time
To teach others about that past life
In hopes all is not lost and left behind

 

Letters, diaries, insight into thoughts
Reveal ancestry personalities
Jewelry, silver, and metalwork
Disclose status and nationalities

Sealed and commonly buried
Under rubble or beneath soil of the earth
The time capsule lies lifeless
Until opened in a moment of rebirth

 

Connections to the past preserve death
Within relics to soothe the soul
Is it news to conserve suffering
Or a chance for cries to extol?

 

A dissonant treasure of our youth
Is oftentimes found enamoring
Should its hidden secrets be revealed
Or remain sealed for silent comforting?

©2013 Awakenings
Sharla Lee Shults

“I have prepared one of my own [time capsules]. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like.”

—Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980)