playing catch up

ok so I suck at updating.
Last night was my monthly book club and April being poetry month the subject was....poetry.
I confess that I don't read poetry because it makes me feel like I'm intruding on the personal life of the poet. I realize that since they have published their poems they want people to read them, but still I feel weird. Ok, maybe I should say I have a hard time reading poetry from people still living, (I'm weird, ok?) with the exception of Maya Angelou...but Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and story poems (mountain ballads) are ok. I don't know why, it just makes me uncomfortable.

So anyway, one of the ladies brought a poem about quilts and I really connected with it. So here it is:

Quilts
by Nikki Giovanni

(for Sally Sellers)

Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days
When just woven I could keep water
From seeping through
Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
Dazzled the sunlight with my
Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories
The tasks I can no longer complete
Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only
this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers

And cuddle
near


Isn't that just great? It's not that I'm old and worn out, but I can see the quilt and the person comparing herself to that quilt. It's just very...stirring.