My Favorite Poem

I read this poem in my Language Arts book when I was a Sophomore in High School. I wrote it down and presented it to my mom as a Mother's Day gift. It is my favorite poem and it brings me to tears every time I read it.

As the daughter of a quilter, I can promise you that the quilts you create and the time that you take will always be remembered and cherished. If you are are a mother, I urge you to teach your children about quilting and show them why it is important to you. The masterpieces you create will be living reminders of your love and dedication.

My Mother Pieced Quilts 

Teresa Paloma Acosta 

they were just meant as covers         

in winters         

as weapons         

against pounding january winds 

                

but it was just that every morning I awoke to these         

october ripened canvases                  

passed my hand across their cloth faces         

and began to wonder how you pieced         

all these together                  

these strips of gentle communion cotton and flannel             

nightgowns                  

wedding organdies         

dime store velvets

                  

how you shaped patterns square and oblong and round         

positioned                  

balanced         

then cemented them         

with your thread         

a steel needle         

a thimble  

               

how the thread darted in and out                  

galloping along the frayed edges, tucking them in         

as you did us at night                  

oh how you stretched and turned and re-arranged         

your michigan spring faded curtain pieces         

my father's santa fe work shirt                  

the summer denims, the tweed of fall

                  

in the evening you sat at your canvas                  

 ---our cracked linoleum floor -the drawing board         

me lounging on your arm                  

and you staking out the plan;                  

whether to put the lilac purple of eastel- against the red             

plaid of winter-going-                  

into-spring                  

whether to mix a yellow with blue and white and paint the         

corpus christi noon when my father held your hand         

whether to shape a five-point star from the         

somber black silk you wore to grandmother's funeral.  

               

You were the river current         

carrying the roaring notes                  

forming them into pictures of a little boy reclining         

a swallow flying                  

You were the caravan master at the reins         

driving your thread needle artillery across the mosaic                          

cloth bridges                  

delivering yourself in separate testimonies

                  

oh mother you plunged me sobbing and, laughing         

into our past                  

into the river crossing at five         

into the spinach fields         

into the plainview cotton rows         

into tuberculosis wards         

into braids and muslin dresses                  

sewn hard and taut to withstand the thrashings of             

twenty-five years

                  

stretched out they lay         

armed/ready/shouting/celebrating  

                

knotted with love

         

the quilts sing on