Grape Jelly Witches (a poem for my Mom)

A porch where drunkards hid their wine
Became our place to rest,
Those long walks home from town,
Hill shadows on valley streets
Hid half-told tales of when you were young,
(And you were young then, but I was too young to know)

Things you gave, you gave quickly
Before the gods discovered
misplaced bounty in our hands...

Moments held long,
Mid-afternoons crawled
No wind breathed...

On nights when single lightbulbs lit entire rooms
And night woods sounds shoved dark against the glass,
You idly wondered why we weren't other people
In houses with grassed in yards and soft curtains...

We startled to
Bodiless footsteps on dark porches,
Rocking chairs that creaked alone,
And doors that rattled with no one there...
Our nearest neighbors
Were shadows of trees...

You are in my mind, Mama
With grape jelly witches
And Orion nights,
Singing hymns as if you mean
Never to be fooled,
The humming beneath your breath
An invocation you left me to learn,
Being small and insubstantial was a talent you
Honed,
Nourishing as water,
Solid as woodsmoke,

Paradise is a clean floor
And flowers in jars,
And hot grape jelly,
The defiant pop of the lids
One by one.

...to Grace Peek

(You can also find this poem
in Wild Sweet Notes II)