Meeting my Mother on the Drunkard’s Path
A Dozen Haiku
(On finding the squares for a “Drunkard’s Path” quilt in my mother’s belongings)
#1
Hospital phone call,
Her voice happy. Eager. Clear.
“I feel like quilting!”
#2 Two days later, gone…
We claimed pieces of her life –
I took squares of cloth.
#3
“Drunkard’s Path”, they say,
Is the real test… Difficult
To piece together.
#4
Fifteen neat, precise
Squares. Perfect, familiar script:
“Tumbleweed.” “Chain.” “Doves.”
#5
I add my own squares.
Use cardboard template she’d held.
The same earnest care.
#6
Blindsided sometimes
By a note to herself, or
The sheer perfection.
#7
Laying out the quilt,
I marvel. Hours of her life
Unjoined before me.
#8
I take what she left
And border it with memory.
“Can you see this, Mom?”
#9
Asymmetrical
Symmetry – tidal, rhythmic
Grief on “Drunkard’s Trail”
#10
Carries me along.
Understanding. Legacy.
Daughter’s from mother’s.
#11
What of my mother’s
Unfinished work is mine, then?
Any of it? None?
#12
Square by piece by row,
I make my way to the past.
Unwrap forgiveness.
