Refuse

The boys gather berries and bugs, but they also gather bits of junk -- dark and glittery, jagged and teeny, shiny and soft, our pockets fill.  As little palms pack with rubble, I remember that things can be beautiful whole or broken.
It's the eye of the beholder.  It's the face connected to the fingers that clutch the valued debris.  It's the irresistible urge to collect, the instinct to dismantle and the vague notion that everything can be humptied together again.

There was a television in the alley last week, before bulk pickup day.  There's a pile in the garage that hasn't made it to the electronic recycling location.  There are fans and funnels, old cameras and broken bike seats and ancient radios.  There are tools in rusty coffee cans, trinkets in mason jars and ideas monkeying in young minds.

Tuck oversees the whole orderly mess, rummaging through parts and tinkering with pieces and with thoughts of turning trash to treasure.
Who are we to refuse?