Hand Me Down Lines

For We Write Poems poetry prompt: Kaleidoscope Poem
http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/

Hand Me Down Lines

My mother is a faraway look, a girl in a photo,
returning to me with centipedes and spiders.
My hands and words unskilled in consolation
and so I play my notes softly.

She prayed each night, counting beads
of the rosary always kept beneath her pillow,
each filigreed orb slipping between silky skin of bent fingers.
My mother is a faraway look, a girl in a photo.

So many images, memories like fine-line cracks
in plastered and painted walls of my mind.
Each day, new ones seemingly forgotten,
returning to me with centipedes and spiders.

Tiny feet crawling swiftly across awareness.
Sometimes causing me to flinch away
from sadness and grief at her passing.
My hands and words unskilled in consolation.

Her blood in my veins, songs we sang together,
words from a journal she tried to keep to please me,
landscapes she painted with caring detail. The laughter, the tears,
and so I play my notes softly.

Elizabeth Crawford  7/31/13

Notes: Found a new to me poet online who wrote a series of poems from The Pablo Neruda Memoirs. His name is J.H. Leonard and his poetry may be found here:
http://www.jhleonardpoetry.com/jonoverse/default/portfolio

Really liked the idea of a kaleidoscope poem.  Decided to do a Cascade Form Poem using Mr. Leonard’s lines (all in italics) for the first and repeat lines. That first line flooded my mind with memories, beginning with the photo that starts this piece. My mother at age 16. She always reminded us, when looking at this picture, that at that time she weighed 98 pounds and wore a size 41/2 shoe. And that memory came back very clearly when I read the line about centipedes and spiders for some reason.