Life Crocheted
by Odin odin@aflx.com — Read all 3,869 poems by Odin odin@aflx.com
For me, having spent considerable time with my parents in nursing homes, I often found the experience very unpredictable, as if I were looking through a window witnessing an existence of life defying our normal perceptions, embracing instead their new world of expectation. (Image by pinterest)
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Life Crocheted
Nursing homes know
arts and crafts
becoming valued visitors
some with knitted smiles
some with mistake’s foreshadow.
How tenuous.
How earnest.
Mixed genders
sitting in circles,
anxiously hooking
thick wool string into meaning,
tendrils of perpetuity,
threading dreams,
shawls of protection,
scarfs of statement,
booties of tomorrow.
Trees of life,
now but withered branches
shedding leaves of time
by twig-like fingers,
punctuating yesterday
with every hole by hole entry,
every stitch by stitch attachment,
allowing Age's changing colors
to float blithely earthward
and beyond.
Like observant wings on high,
visitors can but gaze down upon
Time's swirling visions in slow motion,
a vortex permitting but a glimpse
of our own yet-to-come reality.
For now…
We ride the draft,
peering safely from afar
as seasoned providence
weaves lessons into
what is still to come.
Something long…
Something wide…
Something arresting remembrance.
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Love ya!
Jane
It's sad to see them reduced to sitting around crocheting, but the things that they produce have some comforting affect.
My aunt was a master at crocheting during the last 30 years of her life after being a mother and nurse's aide before retiring. I bought from her one of her best creations, a 13 star flag that took her about 30 hours to create, but sold to me for $13 to help celebrate the bicentennial in 1976. She was raped in her apartment when she was, I believe 92, but as far as I know moved to a safer apartment and never went to a nursing home.
Ron