One of my favorite poems is Remembering Brushing my Grandmother's Hair by Betty Adcock. When googling to find the poem, I found some other outstanding texts about grandmothers. These texts are such a rich place to activate schema and springboard into writing. Below you will find the links to these texts and then my response as a model.
My response:
“Always on a time there comes a sleep stony as a tower, with the wild world beneath, and like this with locked bloom tarnishing - I brushed, She sewed or dozed. The child I was stood shoulder-deep in dying, in a dress of falling silver smoothed by silver, a forgetfulness dimming the trees outside the window like a rain.” From Remembering Brushing My Grandmother’s Hair by Betty Adcock
I see her in the ring of the lamplight by her bed,
whitened head on the pillow, each breath a snore
Until she wakes, my mother’s hand on her chest
Breaths change to high pitched staccato moans
As she wakes, hands flailing to pull back the covers
And reach for the water, the mug now stuck to the wood
The thickener we add to the water, so she can swallow, is sticky
Swinging her legs to the side, I pull her close smelling
The stale sleep on her flesh, her head on my shoulder
Matted hair in my face, tickling my nose with age
And we shift on the one good leg from the bed
To the toilet as mom pulls down her pajama bottoms
Bleach from the bucket faintly covers the other smells:
The consequences and unspoken realities of living
And we reverse the dance, this time to the recliner
Where I will wash her fingerbones, one at a time
Raise her legs with the lever and cover her with fleece
And then wash her face with a hot cloth to clear the sand
And the last residue of sleep while she sighs and relaxes
With such a small comfort, her breath now easy and soft
Until her eyes turn wet, her swollen tongue pronounces gratitude
I lean to kiss her mouth and lay a tissue on her bosom
To catch the inevitable drizzle, shoulder-deep in living
In a dress of her heritage, smoothed by her faith -
the remembering- brightening the dying as we wait.
Psalm 150:6 All that have life and breath, praise ye the Lord.
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