Advice For Nan When She Is Sad


Remember Mother's fruitcake tin of buttons, buttons, buttons,
and she handing its heaviness out of the highboy drawer
so we, small we, could sit on the carpet below that rampart
and remove the tight lid of the Arabian Nights casket of
not gimcrack, doodad, gadget, gewgaw, knicknack, or trifle
but color, hardness, smoothness, roughness, or glitter
to palm like a painted turtle or be tempted to lip like a cookie.

Why did she keep it forever, adding others? 
Not for practical use: few of the treasures
or subtle little joys had siblings.  Was it for our delight?
As we slept did she sometimes sit where we had been, 
long legs stretched before her in pleasure,
to sift through and explore its contents?

Remembering can help, and wondering.

the poem rests, balanced by its own truth----as I come away from reading it, I see your mother sitting there----a timeless pose----her inner life holding and cherishing all of you----like the fruitcake tin held the happy buttons...

michael

thanks for the very heartening words.

What a lovely poem!  Buttons to a child!  Flakes of the Mystery!  ((At the fabric store where my wife worked, they had barrels full of buttons.  Kids would plung in up to the armpit and bring up showers of color.  Adults would be more circumspect, but play in them too.  Once on a depressed day, I plunged my bare feet into their coolness.  Don't tell.))

i will tell, it's a fine story! so glad you liked the poem.  i don't understand how a store could have barrels full of buttons, though, -- i thought one bought buttons on cards: 6 or 8 or whatever, for use.  Seems I have a lot to learn about buttons. 

Just asked my wife.  Her bosses got them from the factory in 50-pound boxes.  They're called "sweep-ups," and they're buttons that fell off during the carding process, or maybe had slight defects in them.  Her bosses put them in an old sink, a barrell, and a big plastic candy bin.  There would often be a few on the floor at the end of the day.

Works a fine reminisce, and the questions appeal. Would like the 'Remember' cut out of the first line - diving right in would increase the immediacy of the recall (to me).

milner