KAREN’S BIRTHDAY WEEK IN THE NEW YEAR
I.
Three candles in the
rain
when Karen comes
into the room.
What’s the name of
that quilt company?
Missouri Star. I
want to call it Morning Star.
But it’s Hamilton,
Missouri.
This was the season
of your advent, Karen.
All those games we
played with two decks of cards,
the ones with the
quilt pattern.
Three games a day,
errors in proofreading
the cards. Another
translation.
Poetry fulfills and
it doesn’t.
You’re 79 years
old, telling me,
There’s another
earthquake in Japan.
If one wants to
express and deepen one’s faith,
why write a poem?
What is it
touches us in the
psalms? Leaving behind
the prose of our
daily lives, we cross
into a strangeness,
an adventure of sorts,
even in the doctor’s
office, handing you
my pen, the
fuscia-colored Parker.
Quilters hold the
world,
every square a
story, every story
a container of loss.
Karen telling me
of the mother who
lost her son,
whose
daughter-in-law, in treatment,
is getting her life
together with a quilt
of muted colors for
the daughter-in-law.
II.
This is all
practice, Karen,
finishing with your
clothes before seven,
lighting candles.
“My clothes?”
you ask, walking
into the living room,
empty and dark but
for the two of us
and the candles.
What a day
we had with our
children ending the year!
And last night we
were alone,
watching, listening,
soul-stirring voices
of Yolanda Adams and
songs of Lionel Ritchie.
And now some light
from windows.
I’ll let the
candles burn and then
perhaps a walk.
Always
more than one piece
of reality
available. Three
meals for twelve people
in the last seven
days. 2023
will be remembered
as the year
climate change
arrived. Taking notes
from The Bible and
Poetry,
“We cross a
threshold, find ourselves
among the strange.”
Reading psalms,
I’m the only one
in the room without an Iphone.
My brother comes
over to watch the game.
Your left ankle,
fractured years ago, unnoticed,
has been x-rayed,
and placed in a plastic boot,
where it’s been
for a month. Still, the oatmeal
was good with apple
and cinnamon; making
toast for you on
this day, even greater joy,--
we made that
strawberry freezer jam this summer
after berry
picking—you so much, being all that has ever
been real. What I
followed, God visible, in you,
this terrible weight
to carry. No angels,
no Magnificat, the
muse for a lost
young man just home
from war. At the beginning
you sustained me in
my hungry search
to be human. There
was so much work to do
before you could be
yourself, and you, too,
with your own work.
So much to learn. All
that work of having
to be someone’s God.
No angels and your
own mother gone.
III.
And you carried us
without complaint,
once or twice
perhaps, sideways
something offhand,
No,
I never felt that
way,
so when I read
your poems,
they were just
poems. We were raising
our kids, and my
work at the bank,
it felt
important, and I had responsibility
to my customers.
After this card game,
when we get up
from the table,
I’m going out
to my studio.
That embroidery
I’m adding,
this morning it
just might work.
And getting up from
the table
you step into your
life with fabric,
an assemblage
artist, creator of landscapes,
a colorist, perhaps
most subtle
in use of threads.
Filling our home
with beauty, ranging
from Japanese silks
to Americana folk
art on coffee tables.
After birthing
others, bringing them along
assenting to
vision-dreams in your listening,
birthing yourself
again and again.
Love, Jim
2-24 January 2024
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