HER KNOTTED STRINGS

HER KNOTTED STRINGS

Here I am, untwisting/threads from their/gathered knots—/to try again to lay/the winding straight./So it is each day, /impatient fingers at their practice;/and only hope that time might/make things new again.---From “Morning Lesson” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 08-01-11

If we only had time on our side,

we would play hammock games.

Remember those balls of yarn

we gathered into knots while she

puttered in her little herb garden? 

How she would tear at her hair

finding them strung like cobwebs

across her ornately carved chests

in the room that smelled of camphor.

A mesh of rainbow strings, abuela! 

I would plead for them to remain

hanging trellis-like until sundown

when the setting sun’s rays break

through the window’s bamboo slats

and cast eerie shadows on her bed. 

Was it worth all the time we rued

as lost kite-flying hours, while she

held her cane at a striking distance

and barked at every giggle spent

away from unravelling those knots? 

Here I am, on my hammock hour,

untwisting those lost threads now

still knotted in my old cold heart,

where I know I can still hear her ask:

have you laid all your strings straight? 

---Albert B. Casuga

08-01-11