What Happens to What has Been?

I don't usually write what I call "real" poetry -- it's too hard to get all those feet to work out and to get the right meter and then to get things to rhyme on top of it.  And even if you manage all that it often comes out sing-songy and a bit ridiculous.  I have GREAT respect for poets who write good poetry!

But every now and then I'm hit by a series of images that suggest what I think is "blank verse" (yes, the English Major must confess, she's not even sure what the rules of that genre are).  The first three lines below were the last part of a conversation I was dreaming when I woke up this morning, and since they did not evaporate as most of my dreams do, I decided to follow them where they took me. FWIW.


What happens to what has been?

Should it be discarded like yesterday's newspaper,
fit only for containing vegetable peelings
or absorbing the grease left in the pan?
Is it the unbreakable mold
of all our tomorrows,
binding us to a destiny
begun before we knew
we had the possibility of choice?
Or is it fodder for the day, our daily bread
providing us with nourishing experience,
offering wisdom that opens the possibilities
of paths we never knew existed?

What should happen to what has been?