The Christmas season frequently brings up the ghosts of Christmases past. (Charles Dickens really hit on something there!) Here’s a villanelle I am posting for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night, which concerns that focus on the past.
As a preliminary note, I’d like to say that my mother’s mind keeps its objects in a very clear array. (Seriously, Mom, “disarray” sounds more poetic!) Also, the painting above, very poorly cropped in my photo, was made by one of my grandmothers.
My mother’s mind
My mother’s mind’s a disarray of lives
she tries to sort like bank statements or socks,
the memories of grandfathers, farms, old wives.
Land sold, cash lost–those tales as sharp as knives
that wound the dead–bringing anger that unlocks
my mother’s mind. A disarray of lives
whose weave she’s sure will warp without her tithes,
her tributes to hard work (also hard knocks),
the memories of grandfathers, farms, old wives.
She rallies around their wits–ambition drives
her past more than her future-as time’s tick rocks
my mother’s mind, a disarray of lives.
Can’t bring them back; no, that’s not what she tries.
Simply to make them last, pry from pine box
those memories of grandfathers, farms, old wives–
substantiating them–so she too thrives.
Throat fills with tears she seeks, with fears she blocks–
my mother’s mind, a disarray of lives,
memories of grandfathers, farms, old wives.
(If you are interested in villanelles, check out my comic “Villain-elle” with elephants. If you are interesting in checking out, then look up NOSE DIVE, my new comic novel, illustrated with Jonathan Segal. A lot of fun!)
ManicDDaily 
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