Saturday, May 7, 2011

Folding Clothes



I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes.  No matter who lives
or who dies, I'm still a woman.
I'll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together.  Nothing can stop
our tenderness.  I'll get back
to the poem.  I'll get back to being
a woman.  But for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.

-- Tess Gallagher (read in Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor)




The gift of time, of keeping house with my children beside me.

And a green leaf heart - from Genevieve, "the first gift for your Mother's Day, Mom."

5 comments:

Sylvia said...

Margo, I love this post! Happy Mother's Day! And thanks for doing such a good job. It's a gift to the world.

Reginas Cottage said...

dear margo,
wonderful post!!!
happy mother's day,
regina

Polly said...

That is a great poem.

And a lovely post! It is a blessing to engage in keeping house and being with the family. Folding laundry can be sweet togetherness time! (even when it is folded 'creatively' as Finn is wont to do).

Happy Mother's Day to you!

Christian - Modobject@Home said...

A lovely, lovely post... so appropriate for this weekend. Happy Mother's Day to you Margo, a most attentive and tender mother.

BLD in MT said...

Awwwww.... that little leaf heart is so sweet.