FLORENCE'S HAT
My grandmother’s hat stays.
I will not let it go.
It speaks to me of Sundays.
It wonders where the white gloves went.
It must have come for Easter,
absorbing words of resurrection
in a church out on the plains,
made nervous by the wind,
for prairie winds are ruthless
with an appetite for hats.
It whispers of her small indulgence:
velvet flowers on a rim,
VELVET FLOWERS
pink and cream with eyes of pearls
peeking out of navy netting.
It hides the place her hat pin pierced,
anchored in unruly tresses.
It remembers things I never knew.
Tells me stories of her longing.
She left one finer piece of jewelry
and one long dress of mossy green,
a dozen worn and homemade aprons,
at least a hundred recipes,
and a small hat that looks odd on me.
I’m a child who’s grown too big.
I can’t dream about what I will be
when I am all grown up.
Am I really all grown up?
I place it on my head again,
listening for what it says
of a time that wasn’t mine
and a woman we both knew.
ME, MYSELF & I
STEVE WINWOOD CURES INDIGESTION!
I got into this post-supper funk. The ho-hum doldrums, like I’d eaten too much and that annoying why-do-anything-at-all feeling, but when I heard Steve wailing “Put On Your Dancing Shoes” that was all it took. His 1988 recording gives me a voice as passionate as Michael McDonald, but without the lyric’s whine. I’m cured!
