Tag Archives: family

Clean for Tomorrow

Women before me look out past their sinks.

My mother with a lawn

of full trees and cardinals.

My grandmother in an alcove

of cheery wood cabinets.

I see blue Norman Creek as day slowly melts.

Familiar porcelain aches fill my sink.

Cookware, utensils, all

spent pots and pans.

Burnt-on leftovers,

Stuck crumbs hanging on,

Hands pruned in water; spine bent to task.

Watch plucky bubbles soon find rivulets

of air. Feel tension ease

as you look up and shift.

How doused we are with

indelible fortune. Tonight, I

chose scrubbing. To be clean for tomorrow.

[Written in April 2020]

Silver Linings

Pandemic furlough –

My Walden pond.

A chance to sit quiet

On a snowy couch

With Sandburg and

Whitman, and my great-

Grandmother who,

With silver thread,

Ties the past to my

Future roads. How

She loved Frost asking:

Which one will you

Take?

Waiting for Alice

Waiting. Winter concise in tongue says,
“It will never happen. It can’t.”
Black birds chatty squeal
“She’s forgotten, she’s forgotten you” like
playground children in keep-away.
Wood floorboards beneath my spine reason
“Be content in memory, it is enough.”

I listen, and I wait.
Only the snowy owl, rare in visits, winks
“One day, one day. You’ll see.”