The History of One Life

 

Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List -- The Prodigy

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Through many windows life looks out...
Through windows rosy with young dreams
      And windows grey with pain:
Through windows bright with hope's gay light
      And windows dripping rain...
~George Elliston

I often think of the history of one life, not from a text book but one that may have been a grandmother to the second cousin of the lady I just passed in the cereal aisle. What was her story? What came of her first love? Did she die of a broken heart or natural causes, or is that the same thing? A million questions flood over me like when it rained last April. Does anyone still speak her name? Will she be remembered? 

Sometimes I think that is the most tragic part of it all; the thought of being forgotten!

Everything reminds me of all the numbered midnights with my lost loves.

For life is surely a legend but death is truly famous and not just on Sundays!

So, I write love letters to the world with ink not on my hands but my heart,

saying, remember me!

 The little girl, the rain storm, and the old poet.

And each are the threading on the edges of my cotton cloth,

the one my mother was sewing long before I knew the colors I myself would choose to wear.

After years of dishes, problems that linger like fat thighs, and seeing more than I ever expected,

I find I view souls like books, enormous books with fine print and chapters that cannot be counted.

The world is a library of beautiful and tragic stories.

It just makes me sad to think that some were never even opened and read at all.

Fire, Landslides, & Bears

 

Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List --The Return of Ellie Black

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“But to fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.”

 ~Katherine Paterson

Seven days I worried long and seven days the wheel stayed true

my mind flipped and reeled down gravel roads

but knees and elbows stayed clear of any wounds

my eyes see a danger that this world says is just not there

my heart wants so bad to believe it

but my mind remembers fires landslides and bears

vulnerable and uncertainty are like papercuts with alcohol upon my hands

and I can’t forget the sting or the dash in all my plans

the plane flies too high and the ocean spans too deep

this life is full of risks and near misses

and its earthly gift is not one we get to keep

for seven days I worried long and seven days the baby never cried

maybe one day I will learn to see through faith’s maroon glasses

and take the bandana of fear off my nervous eyes!

I Will Never Forget Her

 

Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List -- The Last To Go

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Beauty has no boundaries, no rules, no colors. Beauty is like a religion. You can include everything inside it. ~  Alessandro Michele  

My grandparents had a colored maid, at least that was the expression my Grandpaw used.  At the time, I thought she was older but I realize now, I was wrong. I am certain she was an old soul though.  She came twice a week to do what my Grandmaw couldn’t. She had a down to earth way about her, and had 7 kids, a husband that wouldn’t work, and no car.  She would take the bus and walk from the corner stop.  She had her own small closet in the dinette area, changed her shoes and put on an apron with pockets and began the many chores expected of her. All the while, she would hum and she always sang like there wasn’t a care in the world.  Her name was Miss Jesse, and she was beautiful in every way.  I once asked her why she was black and her face lighted up like a soft lamp as she said, “child, God made some of us black and some of us white".

I will never forget her.

There was more than one layer she wore of the truest beauty.

Each flowed around her like scarves in storm’s way.

And she carried them all close enough

but also gave them as ribboned gifts

to her children and to their children’s children.

Diamonds that sparkle and coals that warm like seasons within her eyes

except winter,

that she saved for just one man.

That bitter cold is why she learned to be tough!

Something she never wanted or planned on

but hunger drives us to climb, hunt, and borrow.

So, she became a totem of strength;

tall with a certain might that only the bearers of true burdens know.

Callused hands from scrubbing

 and a heavy heart from deeper worries,

yet she chose to love like a mother to the whole world

with a voice that was always lovely.

Her boys were her deepest of prayers

 and they were her inkwell of something more

upon a page like a scripture.

She memorized and sang them all by name

until they were as known to Heaven as the most worn page in a hymnal.