The Artist

. . . the more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. ~ Vincent van Gogh


"I love you more than you can know,"
Grandma brushes my hair from my face
at our final greeting.


And still, at night I sleep beneath
thousands of tiny white stitches
run from needles held
by Grandma and her friends
on Tuesdays in Arkansas.


I curl beneath scenes of appliqué children,
each with a companion: the worms in a corn can,
the kite, the frog in the pocket,
the Bible with the girl in Sunday best--
the indignities of sleep swathed
beneath a drool-stained hem,
beneath thread-bare trousers
and raveling dresses
whose soft fabric was salvaged
by one who never forgot the Depression.


Isn't this what we ask for--to leave,
with help from our own Tuesday Ladies,
some substance of our love?

Nature and Nurture

When I trek to the bird feeder,
following my own footprints
the few yards through yesterday's snow,
my heart retraces other paths with other persons:

Dad's momma, halfway up an Ozark hill,
with her post-Great Depression blend
of the frugal and generous, scraping
every last scrap of leftover food stuff
into the ditch, for whatever creature comes by--

Mom's dad, concocting meals for dogs and cats,
calves and cardinals and finches--
each feeding following another
in the measured pace of the farmer's aging gait.

I come in, and think of coffee break--
something sweet and warm salvaged
from the rigors of the day.

Old Pictures

I have been looking at some old photographs which I scanned earlier this summer. Here are two featuring my dad as an infant with my grandparents.

 This photo of Grandma and Dad feels to me like such a genuine glimpse into a moment in this young family's life. Grandma was small as a child, and appeared younger than she was even as a woman. She recounted how she used to answer the door of her own home as a married woman, only to be asked by a stranger to go and get her mother.

Grandpa is wearing his World War II uniform in this picture. He was a "flight instructor by instrument" in the Air Corps. In their last year or two, Grandma and Grandpa loved to tell us stories about Dad as a baby and their life on military bases.

Communion Reflections

See
my grandma's arthritic hands
encircling a clean white sock,
squeezing the deepest purple juice
from grapes found wild
in her dying son's backyard.
Taste it--thick, warm as blood,
pungent as suffering.

Crazy Quilt Square

Grandma kept the silk and satin pieces,
remnant bits of lace, an eagle emblem;
cut and matched them--bold as any brush stroke,
strong and rich as wild grape juice itching
on the lips--in strips against blue cotton
backing. She embroidered down their sides the
rows of summer gardens, and the shale
staircase up an Ozark mountain, and the
rugged crosses on Golgotha's hill.