Patchwork - A Poem

When I was young, maybe eight or nine years,

Grandma sat in her rocking chair sewing promises.

The front porch was civilized. I found Nazis

in the woods, fought them with stick guns

and pine cone grenades, laughed and played

hide and seek in the saw grass by the marsh

away from her watchful eyes, fully aware

I was always accounted for.

Sometimes I would watch her antique hands sew,

almost etched with their distinct character,

while she shared her sermons: The house fire in ‘59,

the day my mother was born, the rain that followed,

and the Jesup drive-in down in Wayne county. 

Papaw used to take her there when they were young. 

Long and pretty, she was. 

The prettiest girl in all of Walton county. 

I watched her callous hands cross stitch 65 years

of penny rations and just-enoughs into that patchwork.

Over time, the quilt grew large 

enough to engulf me and my three brothers.

In a corner, she embroidered, 

“May this always keep you warm in the cold places.” 

I didn’t understand. 

She died the next year.

When my first daughter was born, something changed in me. 

A thought tickled my mind and I took up sewing.

I watched her splash in and out of our back yard pool

from a rocking chair on the patio, pretending to be surprised

when she’d pop out and scream. On her eighth birthday,

she asked for a pony I couldn’t afford. She got a bicycle

that year and I sewed another patch on her quilt. 

I know one day she'll understand.