The Small Things
I clean the stove with my mother
We weed the garden together
I feel every ache
as I bend and stoop
like she used to
Her things speak for her
in silent voice
A bread knife
A tulip print
The porcelain cup
that I took from her house
before it was emptied and sold
Not only because the word ‘Mother’
is printed on the side
but because we both
liked to hold a delicate handle
and sip from a thin lip
She reminds me to sweep my kitchen floor
She liked to show how much dirt
she could fill the dustpan with
as if making the world a better place
Her unsteady gait
and unwavering determination
have taught me how to feel my way
across a room
in the dark of night
I catch myself in the mirror
and see her
and when I come across a letter
It doesn’t matter what she wrote
Her handwriting has outlived her
It carries the evidence of her life
like a thumbprint impressed on me
A nudge, a comfort, a lost love note
A clue not meant for solving
______Colleen Redman, a rewrite / Poets and Storytellers United
May 9th, 2025 12:31 am
There’s no one like a mother, yours to you and mine to me, as I read yours. And when they’re gone, well, we don’t have a mother any more, never before. It hurts me just a little bit to say that still.
Jim
May 9th, 2025 12:44 am
Beautiful. Filled with love and loss and a certain melancholy that rises to the level
of respect and honor for all she was and left behind. Thank you.
May 9th, 2025 2:05 am
That work touches main tender points; so much rings true. Not really looking forward to Mother’s Day.
May 9th, 2025 2:45 am
So many things of a mother – particularly that voice and its sayings in one’s head – live on.
May 9th, 2025 3:38 am
Not such small things, Colleen. Your poem resonates with me as I find myself doing things the way my mother and grandmother did them. These lines brought tears to my eyes:
‘Her handwriting has outlived her
It carries the evidence of her life
like a thumbprint impressed on me
A nudge, a comfort, a lost love note
A clue not meant for solving’.
May 9th, 2025 5:15 am
Such small things, especially connected with our moms, will never wane from our memories. Nice.
May 9th, 2025 6:59 am
Loved it. Reminds me of my grandmom
May 9th, 2025 7:28 am
Collen, you show how our lives are like the individual strands of jute making up a rope, you cannot see where each strand finishes because it is woven and twisted around the next generation who carry the form forward, beautiful, poignant and making my eyes leak a little…
May 9th, 2025 8:28 am
Thanks all. My mom passed in August 2016 at the age of 91.
May 9th, 2025 9:40 am
All the details and the little things that remind you of your mother (and also how you are becoming more and more like her)
May 9th, 2025 10:15 am
You express the details poignantly with tenderness, Colleen. Now we are the mothers and we know how it ends.
May 9th, 2025 11:23 am
This really callied out to me. I see my mother in the mirror, walking back at me! I’m definitely turning into her. Lovely poem, especially with Mother’s Day around the corner. And handwriting is so unique, as much as fingerprints. I don’t know whose dumb idea it was to take cursive writing out of elementary.
May 9th, 2025 2:14 pm
A beautiful remembrance of your mother. Interesting how we become more and more like them as we age.
May 9th, 2025 6:38 pm
Colleen, there is no possible way a woman my age who adored her mother, misses her after many years, could read your poem without crying ~ I know I am. So many similarities between our moms. Thank you.
May 9th, 2025 9:28 pm
A lovely remembrance of your mother. I find myself becoming more like her in terms of mannerisms and the way she walks.
May 16th, 2025 7:53 pm
Love this, Colleen! My sister keeps an old, stained recipe that is written in my mother’s hand.