Florence "Floss" Fitzsimmons,
one of the farm girls in her area
to ride for pleasure
and Monte
For years, I have been watching
my grandmother's face
emerging before me
in my mirror.
My grandmother's eyes
are looking out of my face.
They know me.
I remember walking beside her,
as a child, in the cemetery,
when her thoughts were on dying,
when she said how peaceful
it was there,
and how angry I was,
that she could even think
of leaving me.
She did, years later,
and I assisted that passage,
one solitary tear
rolling down her cheek,
when I thanked her
for all the love.
She visited me,
on my way home
from the funeral,
Galway Bay tinkling in
one side of my head and out the other,
as I quickly thought:
"Bye, Grandma, I love you",
as the notes tinkled out and away.
Then came the years
when an elfin granddaughter
walked beside me, looking up
and I was the grandmother
in my turn,
and that vast peaceful knowing
that lived in my grandmother's heart
came to reside within me.
I think about
the love and connection
in that long line
of strong women
who walked here before me,
and the line of strong women
who will walk here behind me,
for the circle of love
that is endless,
for the cycle of life
that keeps turning and turning,
one grandmother out,
one granddaughter in,
footsteps following footsteps,
heart upon heart,
all the way Home.
Kids, this is adapted from a poem I wrote earlier, called
The Grandmother Song. I took it in a new direction and re-wrote it for
Susan's prompt at Mid-Week Motif: Mirrors. It was either this or a rant by Wild Woman about caricatures (which I actually might have rather enjoyed. I may still do it! Cackle.)
WILD WOMAN LOOKS IN THE MIRROR
It is all there,
undeniably:
jowls and Terrible Hair
and bald eyelids:
Wild Woman as Caricature
of her younger self.
It is a travesty of justice
one can do nothing about.
The Court of Last Appeal
is one she is not ready to visit
just yet.
Wild Woman favors soft lighting
and cheval glass.
With an image
all beveled and warped,
she gains a much softer,
gentler perspective
on what exactly age does
to the aging.
She pretends
it is the Fun Mirror
at the circus,
and laughs just the way
that she did then,
at the reflected image.
She is okay with it,
because she is
still breathing.
And cackling.
And, blessedly,
she doesnt really care,
any more,
so she doesnt need
to look in mirrors
very often .
Only to make sure
her eyes
still line up.
