Making ends meet: How we did it yesterday

Settling into my cushy armchair, I couldn't help but think about food. It's a favorite subject. And then I think of shopping, and the price of food.

Despite all the complaints I hear about the high cost of foods and / or eating out, I still believe the cheapest way to sustain yourself and your family is by cooking at home. You have to think about it. You have to be proactive. You have to make a list, and check the items on sale at your favorite markets. But if you shop weekly, you'll build a pantry arsenal that within a few months can meet ll your culinary needs.

First, though, think about the foods you like(d). Think about your favorite meals from back when you were a child, or back when you had you first apartment.

In my family, that "family favorite" was learned when I was a child and that continues today, as I emerge into great-grandparent hood.

My list:

Shepherd's Pie
Spaghetti
Golumpki'
Baked Chicken with carrots and potatoes
Baked Ham
Roast Pork
French Meat Stuffing/Pie
Mom's Macaroni & Cheese with a side of fish cakes
Trout (my dad caught hundreds each year)
Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese

Shepherd's Pie: a creamy mix of ground meat, topped with cream and whole kernel corn, topped with potatoes. When we made it in the big baking dish, we not only had a meal for all, we had leftovers, which could be reheated in a skiet a well as a microwave.

Spaghetti: What's to know. Pasta is cheap. Sometimes we'd use canned sauce but every month or two we'd whip up my dad's soup pot (which I still use) and make several galons of meat sauce. The first use was fo Spaghetti dinner. Then we made tray of lasagna which gave us one meal, plenty of leftovers and a few frozen servings.

Golumpki was an all day affair and the whole family chipped in. Six or seven basketball sized cabbages. Beef and ground pork. Rive. Some of that leftover tomato sauce. We'd begin by making the met filling, cooking all that savory meat and adding the rice and spices. Then we's steam the cabbage, one head at a time, peeling away the softened leaves. That's where the kids come in. As we cooled the leaves under water, the kids would each each brab one, spoon the filing in at the top, then carefully follow our directions in rolling them up and stacking them three layers deep in our biggest roasting pan. Hours later, we would have 90-100 golumpkis in several cover pans, each waiting its turn in the over. The kids got to lick their finger and pick up and eat what had spilled onto the table. At least half of those stuffed cabbages were packed in 2s or 4s and frozen for later use.

Baked Chicken was cooked every Sunday. Mom would place it in the oven, go to church, come home and have a cooked meal just waiting. Ditto the Roast Pork and the Ham.

French Meat Pie, another all day affair, has now been taught to two more generations. It was my grandmother's (circa 1880s) recipe. The recipe dates back to at least 1888, maybe much longer. I still have the full recipe in French from my Canadian ancestors,

Mom always made Mac & Cheese from scratch,using just 3-4 ingredients. Grotons fish cakes, frozen, were a cheap add-on.

Dad was known for catching so much Trout he'd often give it away. "You catch it you clean it" was his motto. Trout was cleaned in the field and cooked riverside on a grill, or in a skillet on the stove or in the oven. A fishing day was a mix of swimming, playing, and catching fish or chasing salamanders. All it cost was the gas to get out there in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

Campbell's Tomato Soup and a grilled cheese sandwich was always present, warming up a rainy day or hours spent playing in the snow. You could substitute Habitant Pea Soup, Clam Chowder or Chicken Noodle soup. Or any of dad's home made soups that cooked for hours on our gas and gas stove.

Eating at home, with family or friends, was a great way to socialize and tap down the cost of meals. The preparation was as much fun as anything, and part of the recreation and teaching of children. Some my best memories are coming into my mother's kitchen to find my daughter perched on the counter, covered in flour or cake mix or sometimes mangled carrots, sitting by mom while mastering these early fine arts.

My food budget, some would say, is on the low side. Yes, but that's also budget and priorities.

Don't get me wrong; I love to eat out. I love to sample new locally owned restaurants, even if I only go a couple of times a year. At my ages, my friends and I spend our birthdays sharing lunch at one of those restaurants -- in lieu of gifts. I don't need more things but the company is the greatest gifts,

One year three of my friends and I spent every Saturday night in a large kitchen, splitting up the recreation of Menus from New England's most famous Inns. Fifty Inns. Fifty Menus. From prep to clean up, we each worked with the ingredients we were most familiar with.

But to get back to my point: planning to cook at home -- whether for personal enjoyment or monetary necessity -- has always been a part of my life, a part that hopefully will transfer down for generations to come. It's not just about the food.

Transitions

I find myself again at a point of transition. The cycle of change continues -- as it should -- but for the first time I am uncertain of just where I fit in. It's a process, I realize, that will be some time in the determining. I only know that where I have been is no longer "right."

Last fall I entered the realm of great-grandparent, a thrilling event fraught with change. And that's been good. I joined the world of the formally retired this spring, by virtue of getting Social Security, and that's been good. I've also joined a cycle of craftmanship by virtue of my needlework, which I market at conventions and shows on a limited basis.

Yet I feel an emptiness within me that has not yet found a place to settle. I hate the city I am living in, hate it with a passion that grows stronger every day. But most of my family is here now. I have always placed the highest value on family.

I miss my old hometown with equal passion, though much of what I loved is fading, gone, or re-visioned. I am excited by that, though, and love the idea that it is changing, growing, after years of urban decay.

I haven't wanted to write in many many months, settling instead into the role of editor, working with other people's words. My own words are just beginning to come back, and I think they may come back with a vengeance. That's good. Do I want write from here? Probably not. I find little to inspire me here, and inspiration, not rote, is necessary to me.

I have a lot of friends here, in the broader sense of the word. I have very very few people I connect to on any deeper level. They've all moved away, moved on to something else. I sense that coming for me as well.

This is my year of transition. I'm not sure where I will land, but I know that I am not happy where I am. Sorting out the difference is -- difficult.

Perhaps in writing this I'll begin to sort it out and find that elusive place to settle. It sounds so wishy-washy to say this, but "we'll see."

Obsolete and loving it!

I often find myself out of step, on the verge of if not actually obsolete. I don't want to be forever "available," fighting each day to maintain that list of "must call" and "must post."

If you call and I am not home, call back. I don't spend hours on my telephone and don't own a cell phone. I am not sitting around waiting for the phone to ring and I manage to live just fine. And with a lot less stress...

I still use a VCR. I have a DVD player, but really, how many times do you need to buy the same movies? (And I have a back-up VCR in my closet!) My TV is a 13" model that is 16 years old. I think. It works fine.

I still cook at home. This city is overflowing with fast food, and houses very few original eateries (almost none with any kind of ambiance ... and no one seems to know what a tablecloth and silverware are). I can eat much healthier at home. Which I do 98% of the time.

I have five bookcases in my three bedroom apartment. Working on a sixth. And a wide windowsill of books. And a table with a shelf of books. And that's just the books I am keeping (all hardcover). If I had every book I've ever read I would need a ten-room house ....

I have a cassette player. With several hundred custom made cassettes filled with my favorite music. I need it and use it every day. Of course I have CDs, but they are far far fewer than that customized music.

I use a computer, and get all my news there. I can pick and choose -- CNN, CBS, PBS, BBC -- without commercials, and I can turn it off. Mostly I watch TV on it since I won't spend the money on Cable until they allow me to pay only for the channels I want to watch (and that won't happen any time soon). If I have to pay for 80 channels and only watch 4, I really don't see the point! Back to my computer, where those 4 are free. Oh, and I write on that PC -- a lot.

I got a Twitter account four years ago and haven't touched it since.

My sewing machine is at least 45 years old. Survived our house fire and works just fine. I make clothes and design costumes on it. And I still prefer hand-finishing, which takes longer but is so satisfying.

I have a coffeemaker (4 cup) that I never use. I am thinking about buying a percolater. There is something soothing about its rituals.

By business card reads "By Appointment or Chance."

I am comfortable with silence. And my days are peaceful.

Hummers

Persistent. Observant.

As renovation work begins
my feeders are being moved
from place to place around my yard ...
in the front garden,
to the backyard by the clotheslines,
to the back fence,
then hanging again from a strong branch
away from the roofline.

Within minutes of each move,
resilient hummingbirds swoop in,
head-buzzing humans to lay claim
the sweetness of sugar water.

Listen for the rustle of fluttering wings
before you step out the door.

Waiting ... with love!

A few months ago, my younger granddaughter, 22, (at right) sat across from me in the living room and told me that she was "expecting." It was the quintessential "wow" moment. Days later her words were still sinking in.

Words of change that roll through one's life in cycles, in circles. I remembered quickly I learned was pregnant so many, it seems, years ago. I was gifted with an amazing daughter. I was also trusted with the gift of nurturing her and helping her become the woman she is. From the hand-holding to the letting go, the circle continued.

When my daughter had her three children, I stepped into the grandmother role with far more ease than I expected. I stepped back and allowed her to develop her own mothering. I lost my own mother in all of this transition, becoming the matriarch (that sounds so formal) of our family. In goddess lore, I am the crone, the wise woman, the healer, the deliverer of solace and profound peace.

When my beautiful Rochelle sat down to talk with me, I was honored to view the newest mother in the cycle (maiden, mother, crone). I visioned my daughter now stepping back, taking that grandmotherly role, with all its magic. While the new 'mom" tackles all the minutia of child-rearing and homemaking, the new "grandmom" gets to play, to teach, to love in ways that parents might not always have time for. As a grandmom, my daughter moves further along the cycle.

With great-grandmotherhood pending, I move further into the crone, ready to love more -- love grows exponentially with each child born -- I will also step back a bit and let the new parents love and learn, let the new grandmom learn that amazing realm of second-generation nurturing, and carve my own niche within the cycles and circles that are expanding yet again. It's exciting, because while I move a tad slower, I have knowledge and skills accumulated over time. I am the keeper of family history, the mender of family heirlooms, the teller of stories, the maker of little costumes, the ear that listens to the secrets and worries and joys of all who are coming up after me.

It will be a joy to have a new, tiny little hand in mine, fingers curling around my thumb, listening to all those gurgling sounds (probably baby gas but adorable nonetheless.

My Rochelle is going to make a wonderful mom; she holds the joy of life in her hands. She is smart, funny, beautiful, and talented and can be anything she wants to (including a mom) - and best of all, she, working with this man she loves, can give those gifts to her child and other children that may follow.

I am gifted by her and through her, and am pleased that I am a young enough great-grandmother that I can enjoy all of this for some time to come.

Can't wait to see this new little baby (due: October-ish).

Love you, Rochelle.

Wanderer

Light through a window,
illumination against the night.
Beckoning.

Fiddler

On the village rooftop
under the tree,
the fiddler plays.
Sunrise, sunset.

Waking

Fog's fingers
pull curtains of mist
over morning.
Sleep-shuttered eyes open,
awaiting a sliver
of sunlight.

Harvest

November gray. Overnight, it seems, strong winds tore golden brown leaves from every tree. Skeletal limbs reach skyward even as shadowy winter clouds hang lower and lower. The river waters darken, growing colder, the surface buffeted by a brisk breeze.

More than any other month, November holds sadness. It is dying, dead, the send of summer and the autumn equinox, yet not quite to gentleness of December and the first crystaline snow of the season. Limbo. November is limbo, purgatory.

As November recedes, though, a bountiful harvest is laid before us. Red potatoes and Yukon golds, root vegetables, squash and pumpkins, the last gigantic cabbages, the last green tomatoes, an array of crisp red apples grace our tables even as we grace family with that American celebration called Thanksgiving.

Perhaps November's mission is to create a space to mourn the loss of lushness, then nourish us back to contentment as we gather family around a table and celebrate the gift of each other.

Last Dance of Summer

The equinox has come and gone, this year a bold line separating summer's heat from the coldness of autumn. Outside, steel gray skies lower, a deeper heavy sky, a portal to winter. But not quite yet.

In my garden, the hummers dance the last dances amid browning leaves scattered with the last bright colors of the season -- the golds and burnished orange -- wealth of the harvest.

In a week or two those sparkling, flittering creatures will disappear, seeking warmer air and brighter sun in southern climes. I'll take down my bright red feeders, wash them inside and out before setting them aside for another season.

It's been a rich year for hummers -- dozens of them have feasted on my sugar water concoction.

While I will miss them, it's time now to set the table for the winter birds, the cardinals and finches and tiny house sparrows ... different feeders,
different menu.

Cycles and circles.

The last dance of summer. The first waltz of winter.

In my garden.

Not your usual Father's Day story: Dads aren't always biological fathers

Father's Day. Throughout the week I've been contemplating fathers, thinking about my relationships with them, and, well, remembering. I've had three "dads."

My birth father cut a dashing figure; I have a number of photos -- some from mom's old wedding album and some with me as a child. My last childhood memory of him came at age 5, when he in a drunken rage over impending divorce smashed our furniture and beat my mother; the police took him away, the beginning of a long period of incarcerations for, among other things, domestic violence and failure to pay child support. For the next 12 years there was nary a birthday card, a Christmas gift or any sign that I or my brother were even alive.

I was 17 when I saw him again, though he didn't recognize me (or if he did, he didn't say). I paid for my purchase and left. I was 21 when he showed up at my door drunk, in the company of a drunker friend, and asked to see my daughter. I turned him away, and told his friend that I would allow it if he returned sober.

Another 1/2 dozen years passed and then I read that his sister had passed. A wealth of feelings resurface when I read his name in the obituary and deep within me I resolved to attend the funeral and see him. I went to the funeral home, sensed curious eyes on me as I paused at the casket holding my aunt/godmother (who hadn't acknowledged me since childhood). I sought a private room and after he had paid his respects, the funeral director told him "someone" wanted to see him privately.

He was smaller than I remembered; to children, adults always seem enormous. He wasn't. I had grown taller than him, and he was thinner, grayer, more wrinkled than at my last glimpse ten years before. I felt my anger, hurt and years of wondering dissipate.

After shaking hands, we sat beside each other. He fumbled with his wallet and pulled out old photos of me, along with a handful of newspaper clippings: my wedding and engagement announcements, my 4-H award notices (over 100 of them) and miscellaneous clippings about my life since I was about ten. I was shocked, surprised. And I could accept him, though without the affection that colored my other relationships.

My uncle Roger (mom's brother) was a disabled WWII vet who lived upstairs from us with grandma. Roger was always there for everything from hanging storm windows to fixing bikes -- not just ours but for very kid in the neighborhood. He drew airplanes on the insides of empty cigar cartons, moved the lawn with an old rotary mower and clipped our immense hedges with a manual hedge clipper, an all day task at best.

In Roger's company, we went to weekly fireworks shows at Mountain Park, swam almost daily at Kingsley's Beach where Roger -- an expert diver -- would dive from the third platform (the highest) and swim underwater for the length of the beach. He raked leaves from our massive maple trees, which we burn on top of foil-wrapped potatoes and feast on, along with the fresh corn on the cob mom boiled throughout August and September.

He wasn't my dad, but he took care of us as if he was years. He suffered a brain injury in a fall when I was 22. Then his post-war issues combined with the injury to rendered him ill and incompetent, I returned the care he gave us by caring for him -- physically and legally --for some 22 years. No regrets. During the seven years that my mother was completely alone, he stepped up to the plate became not just our uncle but a kind of father figure to us.

When my mom met my stepfather, who was much older than her, our lives changed. This marvelous man was not handsome in the traditional ways, but he smiled when he laughed, and he laughed often. He had already raised two daughters (both married and gone) and a nephew he had taken in (also grown and off on his own). And here we were, me at 12 and my brother at 9, about to hit the turbulent teenage years. My new "father" didn't even blink, just took us on.

He went to work every day, came home for a family super every night, had a "little Knick" (Knickerbocker Beer) after supper before the garden tending. He could grow anything, though Big Boy tomatoes were his pride and joy. He took us on vacations, took us fishing and swimming, attended our school functions, helped me get a scholarship to college, and gave me away at my wedding (which he also paid for). Not once were my brother or I treated as anything but his own. I was proud to call him dad.

When he first became ill and had to have his leg amputated, he became an example of courage, taking time to be angry before simply accepting and beginning a hefty regimen of PT that got him up, walking, gardening, fishing and working again. Much much later, a series of strokes complicated by cancer ultimately took his life. During those terrible four years, though, I returned his care by caring for him, again using my hard-earned skills to ensure that he would want for nothing.

During that time, my birth father passed away. In the chaos that surrounded his death, I learned that he had two additional families after us, one a marriage of many years that produced three other children I had never heard of, and the other a longterm relationship with a woman so much like my mother that I was staggered, rendered speechless (and that's hard to do).

I learned that my birth father had a longstanding heart condition and a drawer full of meds prescribed but never taken -- ten years worth. I found myself, as his eldest, taking charge of so many things then, including settling the negligible estate he left behind in New Jersey.

I spoke at length with the lady (not just a woman, but a true lady) he'd been living with, finding some unexpected surprises about how much she really knew him. But she had loved him for a long time, and I was comforted to know that he had finally, in the end and with her, found in his own was peace of mind, a sense of beauty, and sobriety. That was something that didn't exist in much of his earlier life. It was good to know that I had found peace with him some years before.

Each of these three men had tremendous impact on my life, teaching me a lot about strength, love, healing and forgiveness. They helped shape my life, and for that I can only thank them.

Invasion

Starlings arrived today, targeting my feeders with precision as they launched their invasion.

I almost made it to the end of winter without them, though in recent days, I've spotted them in near-spring migration, hundreds upon hundreds of them blacking the sky as they soar in a northerly direction, stretching from horizon to horizon.

Throughout the winter I nurtured the presence of my song birds, the fiery red cardinal, the unique etching of a chickadee's feathers, the stark geometry of the red-headed woodpecker. Each has its own language, its own song, its own brand of morning and evening chatter. The starlings, though, are noise. Discordant, squawking noise.

Apart from their distinctive racket, they have an extraordinary ability to arrive by the hundreds and clean out a feeder in half an hour. I had to shut the kitchen down, at least for a while.

My "regulars" are quite skilled at picking my feeders clean in a day; I am used to that pace. But a half-hour? I am also used to these regulars disappearing when the local hawks light on the trees beside the feeder. After all, no self-respecting songbird wants to be brunch. The arrival of the starlings came quickly; hopefully their departure will follow with similar haste, though our extreme cold weather and back to back snows will undoubtedly draw them to both the shelter of my feeding area and the black sunflower seeds it contains.

In truth, though, as I watched the free-for-all that erupted between the locals and the starlings, I became amused by just how territorial my faithful friends were. The cardinals fluttered wings to knock off the starlings, the finches, sparrows and chickadees ran interference. Hard yellow beaks pecked at dark black ones, challenging seed for seed. The faithful asserted their dominance, and the starlings' presence was short-lived, at least for today.

I know it will be a few weeks before the competition settles back to a semblance of normal, and I await the arrival of my other spring birds, including the bluebirds my little house has attracted. By then, the starlings will have move on to freshly tilled fields replete with seed corn and soybeans. Once again, I will have music -- and nothing but music -- at my feeders.

Letters. Emails. Phone calls. Words fly from mid-Tennessee to New England these past few weeks in a flurry of condolences, wrapped in a shawl of sadness embroidered with memories of too many yesterdays.

It seems that such losses occur in clusters, in groups or two or three or four, sometimes more, before the waiting game begins again. It comes with a certain age, though now that I am breaching the "age" the age of these lost friends seems to be younger and younger. Or is that simply my view from this new pinnacle of 60?

I found myself writing more letters, sitting at my mother's drop leaf desk (recently refinished, all traces of fire finally finally finally removed) from the wood. I pull stamps from one drawer, envelopes from a cubby, address labels from a small interior shelf. Though I've tried to use technology (Hi-Speed net running at less than the speed of dial-up most days), I find myself reverting to hand-written missives, seeking the comfort of sending something I've touched into the hands of another.

In the past few weeks, contemplation has been the order of the day: once I get my body moving in these days of interrupted sleep, oddly-timed naps and nagging pain at inopportune times (all the time in truth), I find myself doing a few chores almost in reverse before settling into pieces of silence. I sit alone with my thoughts. It is part of my process of change, that is to say, dealing with change. And loss. And grief.

I haven't felt much like writing for public consumption these past few days.

Curled up on the couch, I pull back the curtain, looking for "specks" of expected snow, hoping for a dusting that will make the world brighter for a bit. February and March are otherwise so brown and gray here in these days just before daffodils and magnolias.

I sift through random photos unearthed in the process of filled the desk, of assigning places within. Each photo holds a story, and I make a plan to identify them all, a process enabling memory, not just for myself but for those who follow. I remember sitting pen in hand with my mother, when her mind still had some clarity, making notations on dozens of photos.

With each memory that passes through my hands, I work consciously not mulling over sorrow but focusing on the joys that each lost soul of these past weeks, brought into my life. I, and all of us who knew them, are the better for it. We've held them all for a very long time, gladly.

Small brown peat pots.
Seeds pressed
beneath the surface.
Basil. Thyme. Parsley.
Herbs in my window
raise seed leaves
to the sun.

Shedding winter
as spring-like sun
kisses the earth.

Vacancy

I pull out
bits of grass, twigs.
Down clings
to my fingers,
then flutters on a breeze.
The inside empty,
I tighten the roof.
Bluebird house for rent.

Yesterday

Milk bottles,
delivered before dawn,
tucked in a box
beside the screen door.
Cream rises
to the top.

Rhinestone Memory

Fingers softly turning
spiral clips.
Jewels glisten.
Adornment for the dance.

Recovery

One of the few things saved when our house burned was my mother's desk, resplendent in a mantle of soot, bubbled paint, and charred wood. Its fittings -- intricate metal handles -- were roughed and rusted out by some quirky residue, fallout from the burn and the black cloud of smoke that wrapped itself around, well, everything.

It was never a valuable desk; it is plain, solid wood, with three drawers of substance and a maze of divided spaces and drawer behind the drop leaf front. In my 60 years of life, such a desk has always been a part of my life. Like my mother, I am a letter writer, a keeper of photos, and gift-wrapper of enthusiastic proportions, and all the components for such activities lived in "the desk."

Of intrepid spirit, I wanted that desk to be pulled off life support and brought back to life. It was dragged out of the house to a patio, where I spent days soaping it up, washing it down, drowning it in vinegar, fumigating it, and bemoaning the difficulty of its resurrection. In other words, I tucked it in my storage unit and let it sit.

In the past year it worked its way into the house, landing in hallway in all its charred glory. Armed with scrapers, sandpaper, and all manner of fix-it gadgets, I began the slow process of, if not restoration, reclamation of the shell. An hour here, and hour there, and a year, still a shell in charred glory, minus a few bubbles of paint.

As I moved through a period of limited mobility, living in close company with "the desk" on a daily basis, I knew that it was time to try that final fix. I believe my mother was prodding me from whatever space she is in today. I rolled the desk (on casters) into my kitchen and parked a plastic porch chair in front of it. I began to work, scraping the drop leaf smooth, one square inch at a time. Sometime a quarter inch at a time, dropping tiny bits of charred paint to the floor. I worked around to the sides, the trimmings (the worst) and its more ornate footings.

I had started this once before; the resistance of the paint to its removal defeated me. This time, though, I found the pieces giving way beneath my fingers, succumbing to my desire to renew this old-fashioned desk. It was a long process. Clear a small section, then stretch, lie down, apply heating pad to aching back, uncramp legs, come back later and do a bit more. With enough repetition, over a lengthy period of time ( I began this nine months ago), the cleaned up parts became greater than than the unfinished remains.

I broke out the paint. The desk was not going to take stain well; plan two was paint (I am a huge fan of painted furniture anyway). I began with a drawer, testing the paint against the wood and finding myself pleased with the color: Autumn Stem, an auburn brown with a hint of plum that pulled to it the burgundy and brown tones of my furnishings and art. The painting was repeat of the rituals of the cleaning: paint a small section, then stretch, lie down, apply heating pad to aching back, uncramp legs, come back later and do a bit more. Eventually, it will all be done. Patience is key.

The drawers are now finished, restored hardware firmly attached, and stand in a neat row in the hall. The cubbies inside the desktop are painted, hinges reattached, and only one section still needs a second coat of paint. Not today though. Not today.

The top of the desk remains rough; much damage still lives there. Thus I am considering adding a narrow trim to its perimeter, and filling the interior with tile (or a mosaic of broken tile), or perhaps even decoupage. The artist in my mother would approve such a solution to the problem.

I won't make a decision in haste, though. As the desk is assembled, piece by piece, later this week, I will think about it, study it in relation to the treasures it will house and the treasures that will be placed upon it.

It will rest below a huge burgundy/brown toned poster for a production of Madame Butterfly -- fitting, since that was one of my mother's favorite operas as well. There is a certain kharma, a distinct energy, that brings all these pieces full circle to each other.

Tonight my small kitchen smells of paint rather than food, and resembles an obstacle course more appropriate for the cellar I no longer have (a cellar is the perfect place for such projects).

Next weekend, when this desk is seated in its new resting place, with its new facade, the fire that tore our lives apart will truly be over. I'll be thinking of my mother as I sit to write my first letters there. She's smiling, I know.

Greening fronds of iris
pierce remnants of snow,
birthing spring
from winter cold.