top of page
This site was designed with the
.com
website builder. Create your website today.Start Now
Great Grandmother at Her Loom

Ines Mesa, wiry, wizened

Woman, bent and short

Of a century, her hair tied

In a bun atop her small head,

My mother’s grandmother,

Doting ‘Yaya’ to all of us, her great

Grandchildren, her smile

Toothless, her mien of the infinite

Wisdom and spent warm breast

So tolerant of our mischief,

To whom we ran and snuggled

When our own grandmother

Imposed on us the strict orders

Of the afternoon siesta,

The post-prandial holy hour.

In her den close to the kitchen

Where she cooked those seething

Dishes of chili and coconut milk,

Before her dotage, she stepped

On the treadles (two poles

Of bamboo) of her ancient

Handloom to shed the warp

Yarns, throw in the shuttle

This way and that, side to side,

Only to treadle-step again

And repeat, her veined hands

Quick and adept as they threw

And picked the shuttle as it left

And pulled tight the weft,

Entwined it with warp

As she battened the fabric

With comb of reed, again and

Again as loom, exact and unfailing,

Set and reset its layers,

Rattled, gnashed, and sneezed

And selvage sealed each edge,

As sinamay stretched like a white

Path across the late afternoon,

As Great Grandmother wove

The memory of our days.

 

28 March 2017

bottom of page