Summer waits
for the icicles to melt
from the porch swing
I remember
…your shout of glee, your sagging training pants and orange striped socks, joyful toddler leaping to daddy’s arms, flying across the open expanse between coffee table and couch without fear, without thought to falling, landing against daddy’s chest to bounce off and do it again and again and again, neither of you tiring until the last leap, ending in the inevitable knock on daddy’s head with tight fist, ‘body home? ‘body home? squealing with laughter as daddy knocked back “anybody home?” and then you lean in, slumping into daddy as he breaths in a slow breath of sweet toddler sweat as you rise and fall against the beating of his heart.
Ode to March
It seems this year I do not know
if the snow will ever go.
In March it sits here like a brick
(not a brick like “you’re a brick, Dick”),
I mean a brick like bricks and mortar,
the kind used in the Latin Quarter.
Winter hard and cold and cruel
will last until the end of school,
and instead of flying kites,
all the kids will get frostbite.
No more soccer, bikes or bats,
for them it’s mittens, scarves and hats.
Cry and wail and weep away,
it’s in the snow you’re forced to play.
Sleds and skates and hockey pucks,
if you don’t like it, then you’re (ahem) out of luck.
For no matter how you plea,
summer’s just not meant to be.
On English Paper Piecing
I like to sew and quilt and do
I love to learn things that are new
I have joined a quilting bee
(Actually, I did join three.)
The We Be Learning on-line gals
Stitch and sew with on-line pals
And every month each one of six
Adds a new block to the mix.
January is Shilo’s block
And I’ve been sewing ‘round the clock
To make a Rocky Road to Kansas,
With the colours of agapanthus.
(Those are blues and aquamarine,
And including a bit of celery green
For those of you who don’t know flowers,
Or the colour wheel of bowers.)
There is a secret I’ve been keeping
I’ve never done foundation piecing.
Shilo’s block is E. P. P.,
Something entirely new to me.
I sewed one block and ripped it out
I sewed again and gave a shout!
I ripped it out and sewed again
It wasn’t good enough to send.
The block should be a certain size
Unfinished inches twelve point five,
But on my cutting mat its borders
Measure eleven and three quarters.
Back to the fabric store I go
With a heavy heart of woe
For I have used all my grey cache
No more background in my stash.
I measure twice, I cut and sew
Careful, cautious, hopeful, slow.
I see the end within my sight,
I am so sure this time I’m right…
I am a frightening beast to see,
Scowling, hating E. P. P.
To the cutting board I go,
Pulling hair and growling low
I have been reduced to drink,
To curse and swear and really think
About the angst of this first bee
And what possessed me to enter three.
Two full weekends I did spend
Ruining this block for my new friend.
I have tried with all my might
but don’t know how to make it right.
And now the month is at an end.
And I have yet a block to send.
In February I beseech you Lynn,
Choose not a block requiring gin!
Needles of Birch
Needles of birch,
warmed by her hands,
slipping loops
over loops
over loops
