Sunday, May 8, 2011

Week Nineteen Poem: Holy Work


A friend said it is "holy work," to capture my grandmother’s stories
And put them on the page.
I am daunted, but determined to take it on.

My grandmother’s voice becomes a time machine
Revealing the secrets of her youth
She answers my questions with delight and
Her eyes take on the mischievous glint
Of a youngster in love with life
Ready to eat the world.
Next week she’ll be ninety.
Next interview she’ll be nine.

The digital recorder is a time capsule that we are filling up together
Picking out stories, mining her memory for the gems
Long held and not spoken of in a long time – or maybe never.
Preserving life and time gone by
In patchwork fashion, to be sorted later.
I am transported by my grandmother’s voice
Into her girlhood
Where I meet my great-grandparents and aunts and uncles, too
Who’s blood is in my veins and character influences me -
All these years apart and still so intimate.
Turns out my great-grandmother was a bit of a rebel,
I can relate to that and wonder if that’s where I got that particular trait.
I walk through my grandmother’s childhood home and touch the furniture
And smell the wood- smoke and beans simmering. 
I can sit alongside her
While she plays with paper-dolls cut from the Sears catalog
And dresses kittens in doll clothes to star in the backyard play.

It’s like Christmas.  I listen closely, each story unwraps a shiny new piece
Of the story that is her life and my heritage.
I am eager pose questions
To flesh out the facts with details that
Give them dimension.
Mimi laughs and digs deeper
And smiles as she finds these stories intact deep inside
It’s her youthful voice that brings them into the light
Where they dazzle like stained-glass butterflies
Sparkling in the sun.

1 comment:

Comments are welcome. Please remember their are actual humans with feelings on the other end...civility is required.