Heart of Things (WC)

 

(Wendy Cabell, published in Come to the Table: Recipes for Loving and Serving, edited by Ched Johnson and Nancy Collins-Warner, Monastery of Saint Gertrude, 2021. Poem originally from October 31, 2020, All Hallow's Eve (eve of All Saints' Day), and feast day of Saint Erth of Cornwall (brother of Saint Ia). Image from here.)

Originally from 2020, revisited now in loving memory of my Mother

Heart of Things

This heartbeat 

pulsed DNA

knows where I'm from.

From Rosaries 

in pockets of aprons,

passed on from mother 

        to daughter.

From aprons in kitchens

made warm by flame

and good ol' potato soup.

From soup on tables

where rash words stole                

Grace that could 

have been. 

                                                                                                                         

I come from voices                            

held now as treasure,

         even so.

*From prompt, craft a poem inspired by Kim Moore’s My People; from Christine Valtners Paintner’s Listening At the Threshold: Voices of Saints and Ancestors (Abbey of the Arts, Galway), October 31, 2020.