Tag: mothers

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Light the light that will unblind us

 
Ritual
  
  
 Each night at dinner, in lieu of grace,
 my mother lit the center candle
 on the table. We children 
 were allowed two fingers of wine  
 from the icy jug that was kept cold
 out on the front porch. The seven of us 
 shared bread and casserole on our full plates
 and the light filled the room with luster.
 Each of us had a task: clear the dishes,
 wipe the table, snuff out
 the half-melted candle,
 its smoky trail reaching to the ceiling 
 like fingers folding into prayer. 
  
 When the washer was full,
 we’d stand by the sink, my mother and I,
 her hands plunged into the soapy water,
 mine holding a dish towel,  
 removing the dripping pans from the drainer,
 and wiping the water away, to expose the shine.
 We’d stand there in the evening hour 
 quietly perfecting every keepsake minute.
  
 Later in life, I stand in class, by the desk
 in front of students as we discuss short fiction, 
 plunging into emerging themes.
 A daughter and mother in one story
 bathe together in a tub infused
 with herbs and bark.
 The same characters travel to market
 to gather bread, butter, and fish
 to prepare together later.
 The mother preserves the daughter’s childhood
 in a trunk:  plaid dresses and yellowed blankets,
 mementos aired out and refolded again.
  
 In capital letters, I write ritual,
 chalk powdering the folds of my slacks. Together
 we learn that these acts are connective tissue that bind
 our muscle to bone.  Though pages away, 
 miles, or even years, we, as characters
 break bread, fold hands into each other’s,
 light the light that will unblind us.    

from Four Blue Eggs
  
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Threads

20160615_191012

This unfinished cross-stitch tapestry was started (I think) by my mom in 1977. That’s the date stamped on the pattern. I rescued the unfinished project from the old house in one of the many clean-out sessions, found in a walk-in closet along with many other sewing materials, loose fabric swatches, patterns and pincushions, scissors and embroidery floss. It’s been in my closet ever since. The center was finished (a sampler with alphabet and numbers) and about a fourth of the border had already been stitched. The shadow of her original embroidery hoop makes a distinct age mark; it’s gone now, but the needle was left in this position. My suspicion is that she never finished it because in 1978 she gave birth to her fifth child–Erick. She also began to do more quilting and stenciling by then, so her art projects shifted. I hope to finally finish it in time for the birth of her second grandchild, Erick and Shelby’s baby due in September.

Threads

Opening the walk-in closet filled
with the stuff of living—I think
one day we will have to sell the house.
In the meantime, closing the door
as a hatbox falls, there are no poems
about choosing the appropriate dress
for your mother to be cremated in.

As a schoolchild, I learned
when there is anything left over
you must carry it. I’m taught to love
what lingers—the timpani in a slow concerto,
the echo of a lost voice,
the sound, three rooms away
of a breath stopping on its last chord.
Paying its debt, nighttime
closes its eyes and gives itself up
to morning. I think she is sleeping,
so best let her sleep. Keep the cat
from waking her.

I recognize my mother’s hands
on the walls of our house. These are her threads;
the threads I hold onto as I make my way,
always there is a path back.

My first act as an orphan: I choose
the sapphire dress, the best color I know
depicting the moon’s shadow
as it spirals away from the earth.

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73

From Four Blue Eggs, published by Homebound Publications. Celebrate 5 years independent publishing, order your copy today, and give it to your mom.

On My Mother’s Seventy-third Birthday

The hike is pleasant; the trail markers
are new, ferns and mountain laurel bloom
along the path. A soft whispering breeze
says something about remembrances
and a flimsy gasp escapes from my lungs.
Wishing for its own voice, a trickle of water
inches down a slope of jagged rocks as if
wanting just to touch something, however cool.
In a clearing, I see across the rounded tops of trees
into the valley and into the complex
gathering of green—the heart of June,
new and curious. Yet, everything seems
to be empty. Despite the emeralds
all I spy are gaps; rifts appear where leaves
and bark separate, the gulf between earth
and sky is full of ever-present grey stones.
More than a half-life has passed
since we wondered whether the hair
she was losing would grow back black
or peppered with white ash, but I cannot
remember what we decided. Memory
in its detachment, is as insufficient
as a summer waterfall.

Ferne C. Tandy Nawrocki
Forest Dwellers

 

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Happy Birthday

This poem was originally published in Four Blue Eggs, which is available from Homebound Publications (ON SALE) as well as on Amazon (paperback or e-book ON SALE!). Please consider purchasing a copy or downloading it for your Kindle or Nook and enjoying the poems on a summer day. In these transitional weeks between mother’s day and father’s day, you can read poems that honor family, nature, renewal and stamina. Enjoy. Buy a copy for your mom. This poem is for my mother, who’s birthday is today, June 1st. She’d be 72.

On My Mother’s Sixty-sixth Birthday

The hike is pleasant; the trail markers
are new, ferns and mountain laurel bloom
along the path. A soft whispering breeze
says something about remembrances
and a flimsy gasp escapes from my lungs.
Wishing for its own voice, a trickle of water
inches down a slope of jagged rocks as if
wanting just to touch something, however cool.
In a clearing, I see across the rounded tops of trees
into the valley and into the complex
gathering of green—the heart of June,
new and curious. Yet everything seems
to be empty. Despite the emeralds
all I spy are gaps; rifts appear where leaves
and bark separate, the gulf between earth
and sky is full of ever-present grey stones.
More than a half-life has passed
since we wondered whether the hair
she was losing would grow back black
or peppered with white ash, but I cannot
remember what we decided. Memory
in its detachment is as insufficient
as a summer waterfall.

DSC_0093

20150425_155027_1

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Tissue

This poem first appeared in Potato Eaters, published by Finishing Line Press in 2008.

Tissue

On the nights she went out
to PTA meetings and Tupperware parties,
my mother would leave
a pressed ruby imprint of lips
on a square of toilet paper.
Pirating treasure-kisses
left on the counter,
by the time I was fourteen,
I had hundreds saved
in her crimson pump shoe-box
under my bed. Weighed down slightly
by a perfume bottle, those kisses
were left for me to find,
until I grew out of snug, cotton dresses.
Now, my best moments recreate
those toilet-tissue touches,
those sanguine emblems,
of beauty, and generosity,
those most sacred tokens
of any world.

mom and amy