nichepoetryandprose

Although my grandmother, my Dad’s mother, died shortly after I was born, she was always a part of our summer visit to my grandfather’s farm.  Her photographic portrait, taken when she was a child, hung in the kitchen, above the cot where we played board games on rainy days.

I think about her sometimes, working in the kitchen, gathering apples in the orchard, making quilts for winter.  My Dad, who called her Mama,  told me how she made warm quilts by sewing wool squares from old sweaters to a blanket ‘backing’.   

I know so little about her.  I wish I had asked my Dad to tell me more.

my grandmother (photo taken in 1954)

Her Eyes Follow Me

~

1.

~

my grandmother

the one I never knew

was a portrait

a life-sized photograph

under curved glass

blurred at the edges

hung in the kitchen

~

she leaned over me

her eyes followed me

            a child’s eyes

            though she died at fifty

~

2.

~

the three of us

played a game

my brother watched her eyes

and I would creep

along the wall

~

leap out

~

her eyes found me

in an instant

~

3.

~

I know her eyes were blue

            though the portrait was grey and white

~

4.

~

she is also

~

her last card at Christmas

            a paper poinsettia

            in the branches

            of our tree

~

the dim photo of a mother

            in a faded housedress

            some unknown cousin

            gathered in her arms

~

her last letter

            love to the baby

~

5.

~

to say I never knew her

is a kind of lie

~

I knew her eyes

and they have

followed me

~

Published as: ‘Her Eyes Follow Me’, Winter 1996, The Antigonish Review 104:59.

(revised)

© Jane Tims