Posts for June 8, 2026 (page 13)

My grandpa never talks of Burma,
finds it hard to describe without
a poet’s tongue. Or he feels
the need to keep that past past.
He falls in love with traveling,
a basement full of souvenirs and
board games to keep us grandkids busy.
After the funeral, I am too young to
understand such keepsakes, sequined
sombrero, embroidered kimonos. I
dream he’s finally ready to tell me
what it’s like to go places so he gets
out the Risk board and put pieces
on places he’s been. He starts to talk 
about the war he joined, when his voice
is stolen again by the stroke that
crushed him.  And he tries
and he tries, but the words don’t come
I wake up telling him, Don’t worry.
I’ll get there.

My watch died. 

A sunshine
touches my wary heart
illuminating the cracks
where the light comes in & out
oh what a gift to
receive the 
reflection of the sun

As I lie upon
layers of contrasting fabric
red, blues, pinks and purples soothe
my mother’s quilt invites me in 
faded and torn, raw edges here and there
batting peeking out each patch
warmth surrounds me
I remember questions I never asked—

    Mom, how did you do this?        
    how did you know how to cut each square and triangle?
    where did you learn to layer pink and red
        remnants from the dresses you made me?
    when did you do this work, this cutting and sewing
    the hand stitching and making?
    while Dad was at work?
    while we were at school?

There is no trace of the work she’s been doing
now tucked away in the basket
next to her sewing machine in the sewing room
each quilt bleeds colors, oozing blue into aqua into green
I give her my shibori dyed silk scraps.

    Here Mom, you can make an art quilt and I’ve brought you a color wheel.
    Oh, I have one of those, she said with a tender smile
    I never could learn how to use it.

When I visit a few years later, she hands me a log cabin wall hanging
For each cabin she used a different color of my silk—
fire for fall, cool blues for winter and a mixture for spring and summer.

I wonder does she
hear the same hits when
they drop jump in
her car drive between
bfe by night and rain weathered parking
lots to listen to today’s
voices live through opioids 

confirmation comes from those who know, truly
how the world currently spins 
    security is a myth
when so much is not in our control
I would rather place my hands, my very being
on the very dirt the world consists of
bow down to the miracles which have always, always occurred
tyrants rage and the earth yields
     the oldest story written, cliche yet the only truth
find me touching grass (what a silly saying)
yet find me touching what is real, lasting, redemptive
reality provides evidence

My parents gave me
 a portable typewriter
with a box of onion skin paper
for eighth grade graduation.
It slid out of the box so smooth
and strong.  

An alpine blue hard plastic case
covered the best gift of my life. 
My fingers ached to touch and caress
the keys with the lust
of an adolescent girl
ready to change the world.  

A manual Smith Corona
became my freedom machine
to type my life in words
across the crinkly typing paper
drenched in mystery
and ancient song.

The sound of the keys
clicked in rhythm
like wheels on a train track,
a symphonic language
my own to create,coerce, change, censor
as it echoed through the night.

It was another peaceful evening on the Cumberland
as the sun faded behind the clouds and nightfall
crept up like a stranger in the night.

As the sun went down, shadows loomed across the
water over Bunker Hill, Old Burnside, and the lost
stories of Harriette Simpson Arnow, who once called
this place home.

With the erosion of traditional Southern Appalachian
rural life during the Industrial Age, she penned The
Dollmaker, a best-selling novel much like her own 
story.  Imagine what Gertie and Sophronie would 
have said today.

She never saw the last steamboat depart for Nashville
from the banks of the Cumberland, or the last passenger
train blow its whistle as it rolled out of the Old Burnside
station.

Her footsteps are now covered by water where many 
memories have floated down the Cumberland.  A lonely
historical marker stands above the lake in tribute to her
life.

Her final resting place is nestled in the woods of Daniel
Boone National Forest south of her childhood home in a
place among the wildflowers that is largely forgotten. 

As the spring flowers bloom on the Cumberland, one
should remember the dollmaker, a rural farm girl who
became a literary giant in a time when female writers 
faced so many challenges.

If only the stately trees on Bunker Hill or the waves
over Old Burnside could talk, imagine the magical 
stories that could be told from another time that has
all but faded away.

when crisis or trial strikes hard
there is nothing else that matters
the focus of the mind becomes nothing like the current research suggests
we are capable of a distractionless existence 
face it

What does it mean

What does it entail

How did it come to be

I came to know

When there was need

No where to turn

Believers turn to God

A spiritual power

One can not see

Only believe is there

A human must believe

in the spiritual power

that he/she will provide

We are the spirit of God

Now I know and believe