An email from Conn. College yesterday which included a link to 6 essays written by young women in a gender studies class caused my small stone moment. The first essay I read focused on the woman's relationship with her grandmother and in her very fine essay, she retold some of her grandmother's stories. In the process of writing, she discovered the important relationship between her grandmother's stories and her own identity. It made me wish for the millionth time, that I had paid more attention to my mother's many stories, instead of rolling my eyes and tuning out. I spent my writing time revising a poem which captures one of my memories of working with my mom when I was about ten years old.
Summer Kitchen, 1956
The knife slips
inside the jar edge
forcing amethyst plum halves
against the tempered glass.
Bubbles rise through sugar syrup
past stained glass plums
to meet air and merge.
In the womankitchen,
my mother executes
this summer ritual
teaching me the art
of compression, importance
of preservation,
the secret code of womanwork
behind glass, steam, and bubbles
bursting into invisibility.
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