On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle

Heather Ann Schmidt

 

I have put out the blue flowered tea set I bought 

from Russia

and as we sit here 

I feel like we are opening

up some book and reading one another

passages 

from our lives,

like when you showed me the hidden lakes

and the old stone chapel in the forest

where your family spent their summers.

This brocade we have sewn

is too thick to put a needle through

so we smooth it with our hands

and our picnic begins...

You were going to marry a man of God

and I would travel the world on strange ships

that would take me to Istanbul or Nairobi.

You were going to whisper stories to lull your children to sleep

and I would fill journals with words like revolution and travel.

Instead I say my son, my daughter

and you:  I climbed a mountain.

Maybe the second half of life

will turn itself inside out

and you can bring your family to visit mine

during late summer in Crete.