Tag Archives: Poems about Grandmothers

April 25, 2020 Poem “Yarn”

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 Yarn 
  
  
 Grandma Marie is a founding member
 of the Knit-Wits. They turn out hats, sweaters,
 scarves, and socks. They turn up for canapes
 and cocktails, a little discreet dishing
 of those not there, complete with embroidery
 but just around the edges, building up 
 the local gossip row by row. Here’s the thing:
 we learn from each other how to make it new.
  
 In storytelling, too, there needs to be
 a looping back, complications that only
 appear to be tangles. Details are key;
 so are color and contrast. Without some
 holes, there is nowhere for the attention
 to catch hold. But, ladies, let’s remember—
 vary that pattern but don’t make it up 
 out of whole cloth or improbably sticky yarn.
  
  
 Leslie Schultz


April 18, 2020 Poem “Rhinestones”

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 Rhinestones
  
  
 I think she was spooning custard into my bowl,
 Grandma Phyllis, when I asked her about the owl
 pinned to her dress. “Are those rubies?” I wondered.
 The eyes of the tiny bejeweled bird caught the light,
 glowed as bright as the coffee percolator’s red spot.
 She fiddled with Saran wrap. I didn’t think she’d heard.
  
 “Oh, this?” She tapped the tip of her red-enameled nail
 on the owl’s breast. Metal plumage rattled like hail
 had, the night before, on asphalt shingles over my bed.
 “No. Just paste.” I thought of the white goo at school, 
 how all the girls made it into fake fingernails, would
 wave their hands like movie stars, fling invisible
  
 feather boas over their shoulders, call each other 
 “Dar-link!” Grandma, whose hair glinted high over
 her pink scalp, showed me the worn gold bands on her left hand,
 sprinkled with clouded stones pressed like raisins into dough,
 hazy with lemon oil and cold cream. “These, though,”
 she smiled, “are real,” and lit a cigarette. “Understand?”
  
  
 Leslie Schultz
Grandma Phyllis circa 1926
Grandma Phyllis in 1966

Who defines what is real? Who determines value? Does the surface reveal or conceal?

Questions with no fixed answers….

April 7, 2018 NaPoWriMo Challenge Poem: “Skaters: ‘Lara’s Theme'”

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Skaters: “Lara’s Theme”

They speed, glide, and slow, pirouetting twice,
then pause atop the tiny frozen lake.
Love calls across glare mirrors and thin ice.

I was dreaming but I hear something nice.
Grandma’s new music box calls me awake.
Two tiny skaters glide, then twirl twice

as if they’re dodging tin cans and tossed rice.
My breath clouds the mirror; it doesn’t break.
Love keeps them spinning on the thinnest ice.

Grandma explains: a magnetic device
works under the surface, for goodness sake.
The toy skaters glide, pirouetting twice.

Their frozen figures describe a paradise,
but widows know the flowing of heartache.
Love hurls men and women onto thin ice.

Grandma will remarry; once, twice, thrice.
She understands the motions it will take.
Lovers glide, then slow, pirouetting twice.
Love drowns their molten hearts in melting ice.

Leslie Schultz

This villanelle is based, as they say, on a true story, sparked by memories of my widowed grandmother, her collection of music boxes, and her several remarriages, all ending unhappily. Here she is, pictured in a hopeful moment, in 1969 (younger than I am now), stepping into her first remarriage.

Thanks for your readerly attention this week! Leslie

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