Knitting Mittens - A Haibun

When she called to tell me – it was confirmed – she had dementia, the morning sky, from my window, suddenly morphed, before my eyes, to black and grey – the day ripped to rags in fuming clouds … as my world, quietly, tore asunder. 

From the phone I heard her voice – brittle and stiff – say:  the news is not good ... looks like,  I have  Early Stage Alzheimer’s ... makes a strange kind of sense, doesn’t it ... with everything ... and all … but, I don’t want to talk about it now … just thought, I’d call to say ... I have dementia, and she giggled – somewhat strained, I thought, but still:  in that lovely breeze on-wind-chime way she has.

I said, I would come to her – but she said no, not now.  She had something she
wanted to do, alone – something she wanted to get started on.  And she told me that she needed to knit.  She had knitted by her mother's side, when she was a young girl and she needed to feel her mother near her.  She needed to knit and shoo away "the dark clouds" with memories.   And as long as she could do that – a few stitches – every day – it would be a splendid day, and she giggled again ... and whispered:  I'm going to knit you mittens, to help keep you warm when winter comes – as she hung up the phone. 

stitches ... knit ... purl … 
a lifetime of moments – 
beneath a splendid  sky
 

note:

purl (v) to knit yarn with a purl stitch.
the intertwisting of thread that knots a stitch, usually along an edge.
to flow or ripple with a murmuring stream.

photo: Knitting Mittens – W. Bourke 

© 2015 Wendy Bourke

Little Pen

Before me: THE PAGE, bathed in pristine white glow … 

except for criss-crosses looped row upon row –

like tire tracks whaling on fresh fallen snow.

I think and I ponder … with all of my might.

I put pen to paper and write:  WRITE!!!  WRITE!!!  WRITE!!!

NOTHING:  not a thing … Well, maybe …… not quite ……

For then: like a torn seed pod drifts from a tree …

like a ship reaching port in a tempest tossed sea …

WORDS – start to light – like a playhouse marquee!

My pen strokes catch fire and sail cross the sheet.

My narrative snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Little Pen … Little Pen … Thy Victory … Sweet

"The pen is mightier than the sword"

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1839 in the play, Richelieu

note:  posted for Poets United.

Though my "Little Pen" took me in a "light" direction, I do believe that the pen is, indeed, mighty … the pen, I think (with the advent of modern technology) having become a metaphor for chronicling the truth, whether it be by ink, print, film, phone or The Arts.  Evil hides in darkness.  Only when injustices and atrocities are brought to the attention of people of conscience (and they are legion) can there be hope for change.

photo:  Tracks – W. Bourke

© 2015 Wendy Bourke