inspired by
Pat Schneider
The archetypal housewife
clad in apron, home surrounded
by Sycamores, pantry filled
with home made jam—
She calls to her children
come. come home
and these words pressed
into the pulp fibers of our
grandmother’s lungs, rise
rise within me
like the dust of a Midwestern mentality
suspended in the vast grandeur
of great skies, where dreams
float like cumulus clouds
toward a heaven
imagined else where.
There are no Sycamores
on our corner lot
or even in our west coast
neighborhood, perched above
the Pacific Ocean
but the intimacy within
the vast grandeur of
that archetypal poem
crawls onto my lap
in the form of a
three year old girl
with delicate skin & golden strands
of divinity, soft & silky/ against
my face.
How can heaven possibly be
anywhere but here
in her mother’s arms?
