my entries for the Construct Cup |
in our family room, I’m surrounded by memories— things that have remained with me through all our moves. to my right the fireplace, guarded by the tall forms of bookshelves where Dad keeps old textbooks from his childhood— the books I read when the library was days away, and I’d finished the stack I’d gathered the last time. I grew up on heavy solemn tomes which hid such treasures as Ogden Nash and Lewis Carroll— which made me laugh and gather them into myself. on the wall are pictures, paintings, needlework, artwork of all kinds— sunflowers, butterflies, a sampler my mother made for their twentieth anniversary— they’ve had forty, now. Angel’s Landing done in acrylic by my father when he was very young— they went there for their honeymoon. a German house done in oils with white branches reaching up in foreground—my sister. a bowl, etched grey with blue knotwork in relief— a sister’s senior project. two cross-stitch pictures, a grandmother fairy, two children playing on a swing. those are my work— my time and blood lie in those stitches. the piano—Mama’s piano she bought with her lesson money plays Chopin’s nocturnes and Czerny’s exercises, over and over until they are the background music that plays in my head, coloring my memories with my mother’s hands. and when I close my eyes, I can see my family, all of them, gathered in a group, talking, laughing, knitting, reading, writing, being touching me, from the far off place they’ve settled while I stayed close to home. Prompt for: May 13, 2016 ▼ |