It's Still Life

“We’re doubtless as old as our mothers, thousands of generations waiting for the sunlight.”– Sunlight, Jim Harrison

I’m as old as my mother, when she was my age. She was long-lived, into her 90s. Her mother was long-lived, too. Her grandmother lived longer than them both. Mum’s mother was married to a dentist. Her grandmother was married to the captain of a whaling ship. My mother married a postman. Generations of women who identified with their husband’s professions. Except my mother. She was a baker. Hands and arms like a butcher. A baker is who and what you are, she said. My mother lived in her own heaven and hell, and so it was living with her.

That last wind stirred
Silent and cold as wet leather
And stars mixed with snow

Written for dVerse Poets “Poetics” and GoDogGoCafe’s “Haibun Wednesday” Image is ‘Greenhouse, Garden and Washing Line’ by Pamela Grace (fair use). ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting #apoemaday on Twitter