"mended my stockings"

Mending Socks
by Martin Willitts Jr.
Based on Archibald J. Motley's painting "Mending Socks", 1924

She has mended a generation of socks.
She is old as the waxed fruit in the bowl.
Her hands are furrowed as years in the fields.
There were times when she felt
like she would never be done,
she would find herself repairing the hole in the dark.
She would work in her dreams, always
picking threads of cotton.
I would find her in her chair, a soft snore,
the socks on her lap like sad tired children.
I would try not to disturb her, pulling a blanket up.
She would look at me with woolen eyes.
What do think you are doing? I am not done.
When she was in a casket like a knitting basket,
I expected her to scold me for coming home late,
for forgetting my skin was nightshades,
for gambling and consulting with shameful women,
for wearing toes through my socks
like I never seem to care how much it cost to get new ones.
When I saw her with a darning needle in her hand,
I burst into a carnal cry for the years spent wasted.
One of her grandchildren tugged me on the cuff,
Are you the one she loved as much as sewing?
I knew then a generation is held together by threads.


The Nora Diary, Day, 11

Pleasant. Nothing much to
do. Helped Georgie some-
did about six letters for
her. Stayed home in the evening
and mended my stockings. Nine o'clock
went to bed. Rained in
the night.


The exquisite and the mundane. My nephew G has been exploring that in his studies this year in London. I'm totally immersed myself, with glimpses of these days past, rollicking and routine.

Her penciled jottings record events so life changing...days of city life, courtship, young love, or as ordinary as an evening of mending stockings.

For the Record.
This day came in cloudy and damp. We got an open burning permit and will burn our winter yard debris and brush. Temperature dropping. My brother said there will most likely be a hard frost Monday night. The magnolia blooms and many newly flowering bushes will suffer. He told me that it will kill the apple blossoms, out too soon. There is a fear that there will be no New England apples this season. I cried at the thought.

4pm, first siting of a chipmunk for 2012, yay!! We got our burn pile down to the ground for the first blaze of the season.