Poetry Friday - Legacy

           Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty has the Poetry Friday Roundup today, a gathering of words that feel good to the soul. Thank you, Michelle!

             I'm been thinking much about women recently, those close in my family and those I know only through well-known, sometimes famous, deeds. And I've been watching campaigns by women all over the U.S. I am proud of all the women who ran in this election and prouder still that so many will be traveling to Washington. It's often a surprise what poetry finds me. I do write every day, not always a poem, but some lines that intrigue me I want to capture. This time, with so many posting #Vote pictures and art on social media with quite a few of them using the suffragettes as inspiration, I've written about mothers and daughters, what links between, what is passed on from one to the other, implicit hopes from elder to youth. Perhaps it's also about our links from woman to woman? It's a sestina, a form I like writing though don't do often.

Sestina Memoir

From the mantle shelf, the book

was brought with a smile by the mother.

She turned then toward her daughter,

inviting her to sit by the fire

and listen to poems of the seasons,

at this time of cold, snow, ice—of winter.

Soon, the words reminded of a long-ago winter

when others sat and marveled over a book,

this book, the only one 'twas valued, about the seasons.

It told of long years' wisdom, that mothers

passed on to their daughters.  The fire

blazed, illuminating the face of the daughter.

“Mother, explain this to me,” said the daughter.

“We’ve often sat the long evenings of winter

talking and sewing, telling our stories by the fire.

Why is it that this time you remember that book?”

“Because you are almost a woman,” replied the mother.

“And I was told I would know the right seasons

to guide my life, my family.  Those seasons

of growing toward young womanhood, my daughter,

are what I’ve left to give you as your mother.”

The young woman shivered, for it was full winter.

She averted her eyes from the book,

to watch the embers glow in the fire.

Then in her body raged a new kind of fire,

one that would take fuel from all the seasons.

And the things shown pictured in the book

were now asked after in detail by the daughter

because she did know that it was already winter,

and she desired answers from her mother.

“Yes, my dear, I have some answers,” said her mother.

“If you’ll throw more logs upon the fire

to keep from me the chill of winter,

I’ll share with you the secrets of the seasons.

First, the spring, when you were my little daughter.

See, look here, at pictures in the book.”

They rambled on to winter, last of seasons,

then the mother turned and kissed her beloved daughter,

said goodnight, put out the fire and returned the book.

Linda Baie (c) All Rights Reserved