Looking at Mementos

I’ve got another blackout poem from Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver. This one is from page 59.

Sorting treasures
Slender fingers
The locket, a photo,
Her mother’s hair, a name
Close it, jinx it, doubt it,
Wear it, believe it,
Go with it
Her mother left her ash, fire, no chance
A smile, a dance, a time
Each folded carefully
Mementoes taken
Strung from trees
Out of reach.

There are some things that stay with you for days or years or in some cases for a lifetime. When I was about 12 years old I had a dream that was so sad and so real that I woke up crying. I’ve never forgotten that dream. In it I was standing with my sister and we were holding a large cameo brooch. It belonged to my mother. In the dream we are in the dark with light spilling from a doorway that was only slightly open. We knew that our mother had died. We were crying. Although the dream brooch was a fiction, my mother was very fond of cameo pins, rings, pendants. Before she moved to live with my sister, she sold most of her cameo jewelry. After she died, my sisters and I went through her things. She had kept a pair of cameo earrings. Because none of us have pierced ears (anymore due to metal sensitivities) these were set aside for a niece. Although I do have several things that were hers that serve as touchstones, the real ones are memories. The anniversary of my mother’s passing is coming up in a couple days and that makes me a little nostalgic. I have to take time to recall her voice, look at some photos so I don’t forget her face… Fortunately son#1 has her eyes – a distinct grey green so I’m often reminded of her!