in my iTunes.
It’s heavy on Yo La Tengo,
Murray Gold and The BBC National Orchestra of Wales,
with a helping of The Dirtbombs, Camper Van Beethoven, and Brendan Benson
and a smidgen of The Gin Blossoms (“Hey Jealousy”).
But I’ve covered a gamut of novels
and artists
while DMC embroidery floss is gently pulled through three layers of a quilt,
draped over my large table,
and in some moments resting on the floor.
It’s an odd moment indeed,
not for the misplaced quilt-in-the-making
but the songs from my writing past
butting up against the fabrics of my present
surrounded by cottons of the future.
Or are those songs and stories truly from days gone by?
Yeah, mostly.
Those old tales won’t be resurrected,
not with the quilts aching to be pieced,
and whatever else I gotta do
(like, ahem, check the laundry in the washer).
But I’m still a writer
(really).
And I know that because
this morning I read over a story
in the wings.
In between quilts,
a lit fic novel is waiting
for me to give it more time
so it can sit alongside
other indie novels
in my stable.
But quilts have been muscling
that story right outta the picture.
Quilts are loud,
bold,
and right now still lying partly on the grotto floor.
Yet novels are sneaky,
lying in wait inside the music.
For as I listen to these songs from books nearly forgotten,
those closer to the surface
push that e-nor-mo blanket even more on the proverbial floor
making me remember the feel of a novel under my fingertips.
It doesn’t hurt like pins stabbing,
it revives like a quilt wrapped close,
but instead of heat,
it’s love,
between two old flames
and the burgeoning love affair between soul mates.
Not to mention the platonic love
shared by friends for many years,
or the laundry, still sitting in my washer.
Actually, laundry has nothing to do with Some Happy Endings
or the book I’m considering.
I just added it to the poem
to remind myself to check it when this piece is done.
I wonder if I’ll remember;
I didn’t forget the novels,
so maybe the laundry will get in the dryer,
eventually…
For Julie Rose
The Ties That Bind
At the end of April,
thirty poems have accrued;
I’m mindful of this endeavor,
a pretty cool achievement.
Some poems are better than others,
but every day this month
I sat at my computer,
typing out either a poem written earlier that day,
or right off the top of my head
(like this one).
I might not write tomorrow,
or maybe I will.
All I can consider is today.
Well, today and days past
as again I peruse old playlists
from novels gone by.
Which means days long past,
which this day will be
tomorrow
whether I write a poem or not.
Today has been spent
making a quilt binding
and doing laundry.
And I won’t forget the laundry
because a few shirts are hanging in the
sewing/poetry grotto doorway.
I won’t forget the binding either,
which still needs to be ironed in half
longways
because the quilt is sitting on my bed
and the sewing machine has been moved into the grotto.
(Normally it lives in the living room
providing this author/seamstress a few extra steps on the old pedometer.)
Nor will I hasten to lose all I’ve chronicled this month
in the guise of non-rhyming verse;
Dietrich and Eberhard and the rest
are waiting for me to finish this,
so I can read more letters while eating a toasted bagel with peanut butter.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge will follow me into May,
just like quilting and laundry,
but this poem,
and those from the previous twenty-nine days
are set apart;
they are a special moment,
part in Lent,
part in quilts,
part in my past.
Which is never far away,
just ask all the novels I’ve written over the last several years
still right at the forefront of my brain
via music.
We have no idea
no flipping clue
how close the past it,
even if we don’t want it right at our heels.
And it’s not about
those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
It’s about all the threads
woven together
that make up our lives.
Quilts and martyrs,
poetry and novels,
music and dirty socks;
it’s all necessary,
from R.E.M. and Fleetwood Mac
to Discordia and Alsace Lorraine
and Dusty Springfield.
Those artists represent The Two Dans, a novel basically about…
Love, which is all my books,
poems too,
concern.
For, if I have quilts and poems and clean knickers,
knowledge about a German pastor killed in 1945 by the Nazis,
more musicians that is good for a person
but not love,
I’m a clanging gong,
a resounding cymbal,
or something like that.
I’m like that long winding binding
unattached to the quilt,
blowing in the wind.
But soon enough, I’ll press that binding in half,
sew it on the front perimeter of the quilt,
iron it toward the back,
then hand-stitch it in place
while I watch baseball, or maybe even playoff basketball.
(Go Warriors!)
And maybe I’ll have written,
and possible even posted, another poem.
Or maybe not.
But this I know;
I will have loved.
Somehow, some way,
I will have loved.
About the Author
Anna Scott Graham was born in 1966 in Northern California. A mother to several, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and more than a few quilts.