I met a woman
who had brain tumors
and after doctors
removed them
she couldn’t focus enough
to read.
Since then
every morning
she paints the sunrise.
“Do they all look different?”
I asked her.
“To me they do,”
she said
though admitted that when she
hung them in a gallery
people wondered,
“Why so many pictures of
“Why so many pictures of
the same thing?”
My mother tamed robins,
calling them to her porch,
feeding them what was left
of her breakfast toast.
She had a special one
and mentioned him each day.
“How do you know it’s the same one?”
I asked.
“I just know,”
she said.
Before her 96th birthday
I asked her what she wanted.
“I don’t need anything,”
she replied.
“And, besides, I have a robin.”
Today I am peeling apples
picked from a tree
belonging to a friend’s mother.
Each one is different
in shape
in size
in the placement of
the worm holes.
They are going in a pot of water
to be boiled,
sugar and cinnamon added
to make applesauce.
I would like to share some with the woman
who does sunrises.
Maybe I will buy one of her paintings
and when I see it
framed on my wall
I will think about
sunrises
and robins
and apples in a pot.
To
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4 comments:
I keep going back to reread this poem; first it didn't overwhelm me except for the mother who befriended the robin. Today I read it again and got choked up as I saw how it all fit together. The sunsets, the robin and the apples. How we are all alike but uniquely different to those who know us. I identified with this because when I moved into this home, I named two squirrels who crawl along the fence just outside my dining room windows--Fred and George. My grandchildren love it, wait and watch for their jumping along the fence and never question that they might be other squirrels, not Fred and George. I love the minds of children and mothers who train robins! Thank-you, Prairietalk, for your poem!
Thank you, Debbie! I love your story of Fred and George. It's a story my mother would have loved too. Prairietalk
Prairietalk, I love a poem about paying attention each day to what we love, worms or not, and wanting to sit with those who see the same thing each day and look forward to that.
Thank you, Turtle GG. Yes, it's like the saying (don't know who said it???): There's enough beauty in one flower to last a lifetime.
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